


Listerworld

by Kahvi, Roadstergal



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dysfunctional Relationships, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-12
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-16 03:47:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 62,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/535135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadstergal/pseuds/Roadstergal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After <i>Out of Time</i>, Rimmer and a still-dead Lister in stasis become trapped on an uninhabited planet for centuries, and history repeats itself.... somewhat. </p><p>"Only the Chosen Ones knew the true name, the others holding their ears in respect and awe. Occasionally, though, a young child would forget him or herself and lift one hand ever so carefully, and would hear the name - oishmegheid, oishmegheid - rising to the sky above. The Chosen Ones would see, of course, as they always did, and they would smile amongst themselves, knowingly, for such was the way. Curiosity was a high virtue of the Sleeper. And so they would remain until the early hours of the morning, chanting patiently until the curtain of the hut, adorned with blessed leaf, would shiver and part, and the Watcher would come out and shout to them his blessing:</p><p><i>"For the love of all that is good and holy, will you goited, gerbil-faced twonkers smegging shut up!"</i>"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set after an alternate ending to the episode "Out of Time".

And it was said that one day, the Sleeper would become whole again, and wake, and the Watcher would take him away to the stars. And on that day, they would be ready; they would be complete. This was their destiny. The elders told the story every night, taking delight in adding flourishes and out-doing one another with exaggerations as they grew more and more drunk. And by the end of the night, they would carry the elders off to sleep, and bury those who had died during the night's festivities; then they would gather around the Watcher's hut and wait with great patience. The noises of the night would die away as they stood there, patiently, the Chosen Ones chanting the Watcher's true name, again and again. Only the Chosen Ones knew the true name, the others holding their ears in respect and awe. Occasionally, though, a young child would forget him or herself and lift one hand ever so carefully, and would hear the name - _oishmegheid_ , _oishmegheid_ \- rising to the sky above. The Chosen Ones would see, of course, as they always did, and they would smile amongst themselves, knowingly, for such was the way. Curiosity was a high virtue of the Sleeper.

And so they would remain until the early hours of the morning, chanting patiently until the curtain of the hut, adorned with blessed leaf, would shiver and part, and the Watcher would come out and should to them his blessing:

_"For the love of all that is good and holy, will you goited, gerbil-faced twonkers smegging _shut up_!"_

 

Quiet. Very quiet (except for a strange hissing sound) and dark.

Rimmer lay there, wondering if he were dead. Well, deader than he had been. It was nothing like the way it had been when he had first died, however - vague impressions of sunburns, callous officiousness, hints of a language that sounded like ridding the throat of a world-class collection of phlegm. No, it was far too quiet for death. Death also should not be this smoky, or involve something poking right into that sensitive spot below his left shoulder blade.

If I'm dead, he reasoned, I should not have eyes to open. Ergo, if I can open my eyes, I'm not dead.

He opened his eyes.

The time drive hung above him in a twisted lump, dripping hissing splats of molten metal onto the deck right between his legs. He yelped and scooted back. The rest of the corridor, as he glanced right and left, was in equally bad shape. It looked like a giant had picked up the 'Bug and twisted it in his hands, as if it were a beer can wadded for a bar bet. Air hissed out through gaps in the hull, and a he watched, the hull shifted slightly with an agonized scream of metal. The melted time-drive, which had almost restored him to his former position in ancient Greece, must have been destroyed in time to keep their future selves from killing them, but by whatever strange laws of paradox were operative, the damage to Starbug remained. Which meant... Rimmer leapt to his feet and tried not to think as he pounded his way back to the cockpit. But his brain was very good at worrying. It was not good for much else, but it could worry its way right through a frenzied rush through shuddering, debris-strewn corridors.

Its worry proved to be well-founded. The cockpit was just the way he had left it - Lister slouched in his chair, blood trickling from a gash in his forehead, Cat sprawled on the ground, Kryten spitting sparks in the corner, smoke rising from every joint. Rimmer bent down next to Cat, and lifted him slightly. Just enough to see what remained of his chest, which clashed hideously with his jacket. Rimmer was happy that he had no lunch to bring up. He turned to Lister, noting the clotting blood around his gash, the vein next to it...

The vein next to it, which was throbbing slightly.

Rimmer stepped gingerly over the Cat's body, and put his hand to Lister's throat. A pulse beat there - weak and faltering, but it beat! Rimmer breathed a sigh of relief. He turned the pilot's chair towards him.

Rimmer was no doctor, but the very large hole in Lister's side did not look very healthy.

Smeg. Smegging hell. For all of the times he had whinged at Lister and wished the blasted goit _dead_ \- well, the prospect of being alone in a Listerless universe disturbed him highly.

Smeg.

Only one thing to do.

After Rimmer had executed his daring rearguard action on the Simulant ship, the others had snagged an escape pod from the debris of the debris of the ship, to replace the one that had escaped previously. Rimmer had given it a good look-see on his return, as escape was rather a priority of his. It was small, but clean; well-stocked, including a small, portable terraform kit and a stasis bed. For the convenience of escapees who had a long way to go.

Rimmer sighed and wrinkled his nose as he picked up Lister. He staggered down to the pod, dropping Lister into the stasis bed. The plan - put Lister in stasis. Somehow, get Starbug working again. Somehow, find a way to fix Lister back up.

Well, the first part would be easy.

Rimmer arranged Lister in a mummy's pose in the bed, checked his far-too-faint pulse, then hit the Stasis Activate button.

A canned American voice declared, "Stasis seal is only active upon pod launch."

Hell. Hell. Hell! Rimmer looked at the creaking, dying Starbug, and the bleeding, dying Lister. Abandon ship? Well, smeg, what did he have to lose?

He hit the Pod Launch button.

 

Ilse snuck up to the Watcher's hut, hesitating outside. There was not much to see from the outside; a crude hut of wood, with a curtain of the blessed leaf in lieu of a door. Ilse picked at the curtain, biting her lip, feeling slightly nervous. She played absent-mindedly with her braids. Her hair was of the common type - she sighed at the thought of the word - which meant she'd had to grow them out from the roots over a number of years. Unlike many of the other candidates, whose hair was of a type that would grow long without looking matted or getting tangled up (or would indeed grow long at all when loose), everyone could tell that she was trying to become a Chosen One just by looking at her. _They_ could wear their hair long, and get it braided after their initiation, and if they were never initiated, none would be the wiser. But if _she_ failed, her braids would be hacked off, and her defeat would be right there for all to see. That just wouldn't do. It wouldn't do at all.

This was her big moment. It was generally expected for a potential Chosen One to perform a feat of some kind - a daring, dangerous prank. An all-night drinking-binge with experimental new kinds of alcohol, or a brave quest to find new hallucinogenic mushroom or berries; anything new and exciting. Ilse had thought this through long and hard. She wasn't about to do what everyone else had done before her. The way she figured, you couldn't bring something new into the world by walking old paths. You had to let ideas ferment in new places, not just throw new spices into old pots.

There weren't many explorers among her people. They had what they needed in abundance, so why bother? Trees and bushes yielded plenty of fruit, and small animals walked freely into the humane traps they built for them. Life was good; why fix something that wasn't broken? And yet they longed for change. Change meant excitement, and excitement was their lifeblood. So how could she bring change?

Ilse had always loved stories. Especially The Story; the story of how they came to be. The elders told it so wonderfully differently each time, but the more she listened to it, the more it seemed to Ilse that something was missing. Who was the Sleeper? Why had the Watcher brought him here? Where had they come from? These questions brought forth wonderful ideas in her mind; new ideas. Such stories they could inspire! This would be a feat worth bragging about; finding the origins of The Story. And of course, there was only one person among them who could help her in that regard...

She coughed, very quietly. Faint noises came from inside the hut. She took a deep breath and stood up straight. "Oishmegheid!" Her voice was not as confident as she would have liked, by far. Was she not on her way to becoming a Chosen One? Had she not been trained in the chant? She paused. Grumbly noises floated through the curtain, and Ilse took a cautious step back, clutching the nut-shell bottle she had brought, and listened.

A slightly nasal voice came from inside the hut. "Have you evolved?"

"Sorry?" She leaned forward, towards the curtain.

"Doesn't sound like it..."

Ilse pulled the curtain slightly open, wanting to peer inside. She'd been taught from childhood to obey her curiosity, and this time her reward was more than abundant, as she ended up nearly bumping noses with the Watcher himself, who was clearly on his way out. She jumped a little, taking in his glorious difference. It was so much more striking close up. The huge, oddly shaped nose; the moonlight-like pallor of his skin, which never seemed to tan; his eyes displaying a variety and richness of color never awarded to any of her people. His excessive, unnecessary clothes. Ilse felt something that she wasn't entire sure what was stir inside of her. The Watcher. Was she truly ready for this?

"No smegging sense of privacy, any of you," the Watcher muttered. No, not evolved in the least. She was a perfectly typical one of those blighters - topless, shoeless, long braids down the back, lines from a near-continuous pointless grin etched on her face. Worst of all, utterly impulsive. No sense of boundaries. "What?" he asked, more loudly.

Ilse swallowed. "Watcher, I have brought you this gift." The brew was her own concoction; a well-tested and quite potent one, of which she was rather proud. Here, at least, she would encounter no problems, assuming she managed to get the Watcher to drink it.

The Watcher frowned and looked at the largish brown container in her hands. "Why?"

Ilse shrugged. "Because you are the Watcher, and we care for you."

"Beats the ever-loving smeg out of me why," the Watcher grumbled. He took the container from her. It was some kind of bottle. He looked at it doubtfully. The villagers loved to prank, almost as much as they loved drinking and having sex. Their respect for his station extended no farther than minor restraint in their practical jokes, so that he did not have to worry about waking up some morning strapped to a tall tree with his trousers on his head. But he wouldn't put it past an enterprising smegger to bring the game to him.

Ilse quirked one corner of her mouth upwards, as she realized the Watcher's unease. "It isn't poison." He was said to have an unusual fear of pranking-jokes. As though hurting someone - truly hurting them - would be funny! And poison was hard to make; you couldn't find it in nature. Usually, trapped animals were killed with an overdose of alcohol or blessed leaf and died - presumably - very happy.

The Watcher looked at her. She seemed to smile more broadly in response. He walked back into his hut, leaving the curtain open. What the smeg. He had not had a visitor in... hell, he had lost count, hadn't he? The worst part was, he could not remember how long ago he had lost count.

Well, that had been easier than expected. Not many people had been allowed _inside_ this blessed place. Ilse hesitated for a moment, then walked boldly inside.

"I'll believe that when you drink it and don't die," the Watcher groused.

"All right." She could use a drink anyway. Ilse grabbed the bottle, took a hefty swig, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, grinning widely. It really was good stuff.

The Watcher raised one eyebrow. "Have you heard of _cups_?" he asked, disdainfully.

The interior really was not what Ilse had expected. The stories were exaggerated, of course, but surely someone could not live in a place as spartan as this? She tried not to show her confusion. What did she know of the Watcher's ways, anyway? That was what she was here to learn about. Oh. He had asked a question. About cups; did she know what cups were? Oh, a joke! She deadpanned. "Yes."

"Sarcasm is lost on you people, isn't it?" the Watcher sneered, rooting in a badly cobbled-together chest in the corner. It had been one of his early attempts at woodwork, before he gave it up. It was a miracle that it was still in one piece.

Oh, how silly. Did he think she didn't understand his joke? "You know how we treasure humor, Watcher," she laughed.

The Watcher found his two cups near the bottom of the chest. When had been the last time he had had anything to drink? Wait, he had lost track, hadn't he? He turned and held them up to the short, rodent-faced intruder. They were covered with filth and dust. The Watcher sighed, tossing them over his shoulder.

This was very odd behavior indeed, Ilse thought, as the cups hit the inside of the chest with a painful crash. Something was bound to have been broken. She frowned.

Pretty rich of her to sneer at his cups, the Watcher thought. He was willing to place a hefty bet that she had never used cutlery in her life. "It's been a while." He took the bottle from her hands.

"A while since what?"

"Anyone visited."

"Really?" Ilse asked, with badly concealed pride. She was a pioneer! She would be cheered by the others! She took a moment to mentally catalogue in which order she would consume the gifts of drink, food and smoking rolls that would be given her.

The Watcher looked at the bottle, then sniffed the opening. It smelled sharp, like drain cleaner, but not offensive at all. He took a very cautious sip. It went down like... no good comparison. He would have to use that liquid as the baseline for any future burning, searing feelings. He coughed, and his voice came out an octave higher than normal. "Yes..."

Ilse watched him eagerly. "Good, yes?"

"Yes..."

Ilse beamed. She had spent a lot of time mulling over which of her brew recopies she should use as a basis for this special one, and the preparation of it had taken forever. It looked like it had been worth it, though.

Once it had processed, the Watcher decided, it was actually quite good. Clean-tasting, and it left a delightful warmth in his belly that moved out to his extremities. He took a longer sip. This one went down much more smoothly than the first. His head started to float upwards, though. He shook it, then sat on his bed as his sense of balance took a breather.

Ilse looked dubiously at the straight-backed chair that was the only other seat in the hut. How could you sit in something like that? Keeping your back straight was for standing up, so you could take pride in your full height. But when you sat down you were supposed to be comfortable!

The Watcher took another swig. The warmth was now making his fingertips tingle. He was becoming hypersensitive to the smallest movement of his head. He moved it back and forth, experimentally. "Wow..."

She probably should sit down, Ilse decided, dodgy chair or not. She approached it nervously. The Watcher noted her unease. "Whon't bite." What was wrong with his voice? Ilse giggled.

Perhaps another drink would help his voice, the Watcher thought. He took a swig, and the room moved ever-so-slightly for a moment. Ilse was looking at him, earnestly, and it made him uneasy. He looked at her, then the bottle. Oh. She wanted some. Yes. He waved it at her. "You want..."

"Oh, yes, please!" Ilse accepted the bottle with enthusiasm. She hadn't gotten a good drink for days; she'd spent so long preparing. Of course, she must remember to only get nicely drunk, she thought, taking a carefully measured swig. There. That would do for the nicely; she'd see about the drunk later. All too soon, the Watcher pulled the bottle away from her, somewhat rudely, and took an unmeasured swig. She hid a smile.

"Did you make this?" he asked, his voice slurred.

What an odd question. The Watcher seemed to be full of those. "Who else would have?"

The Watcher looked out of the open curtain at the village in the distance. "Theresh a lot of you."

Trying to find a comfortable position, Ilse had settled for sitting back in the chair with her legs somewhat apart, her hands resting between them, arms stiff, dangling her legs slightly off the ground as she swung them back and forth. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best she could do with what she had to work with. "Yes, but there's only one of me. And I'm the one that came to you, Watcher."

The Watcher found his eyes drawn to the movement of her legs. The villagers had no sense of shame, and would often run around completely naked, so he was not surprised to note that she had nothing on under her skirt. He had never had a bedside view, however, and something in that bottle had made it much more interesting than it typically was. He tried not to stare. "Why?"

Noting the movement of his eyes, Ilse took a mental note. Well, he was an amazingly _different_ looking man. She certainly wouldn't mind whatever he might have in mind. First things first, though. "I have..." she hesitated; how to put this? "Questions..."

"I dunno _any_ of the answers," the Watcher replied, confidently. Omens, crop predictions, fertility rites - screw 'em. Not that they had ever asked him for any of those things, but he felt sure they would do so sooner or later. Bloody primitive things. This was presumably it.

"But you are the Watcher. You know about... the Sleeper. Of the story."

"No, I'm R..." The Watcher frowned. Where had that come from? Wasn't he the Watcher? "Maybe."

R? What was R? Ilse opened her eyes wider. This was new. She would have to pay close attention to this one, she realized. He was subtle. "The elders tell the story every night, but every night it's different."

The Watcher took another drink. He had become acutely aware of the muscles keeping him sitting upright. "Yesh, that'sh..." he frowned, faint images of a metal bed and grossly exaggerated stories drifting into his mind. He took a deep breath. "Like... him."

"I suppose I thought... well, that there would be a real story. You know. Somewhere. And we have just forgotten."

"Doesh it matter?" the Watcher asked, irately. If it had been forgotten, it had been for a damn good reason. And what did these people care? Life was always good, so as far as _they_ were concerned, why remember what had been good in the past if it was just as good now? And why remember the bad if it sullied the good of _now_? The Watcher snorted. Smegging optimists.

Ilse looked down. "I don't know." It was hard to express her thoughts, though she had dwelled on them for a long time. It was more of a blurry sense of knowing there must be _something else_ than anything else. "I suppose that's part of the reason why I want to know. I mean, I can't know it if is important or not if I don't know what it is, can I?"

This sentence confused the Watcher. He leaned back, pondering this. Perhaps more of what was in that bottle would help. He drank the rest of it. It went down amazingly smoothly, now, tickling his stomach delightfully. Now, back to what he had been doing. What was it?

The bottle was empty now. Ilse kept her face carefully neutral. This was good... for the most part. He'd been drinking it rather quickly, which wasn't always a wise thing to do. Still, he was the Watcher; he should know what he was doing.

The Watcher's voice was now distinctly slurred. "I barely remember. It's been..." Ah, but he had lost count, he had. He would have to start at the beginning. He held his empty hand out, counting on his fingers.

"But you _do_ remember?" she asked, hopefully. He had to remember; all her plans, all her preparation would have been pointless otherwise.

The Watcher finished one batch of fingers, and started from the beginning of his hand again. It _had_ been a while.

Ilse became dizzy, watching those fingers. They really were quite delightful fingers, so very unlike anything else in the world. He should consider siring children; women would fight for the privilege of mixing their genes with his. He would have his pick of the most radically different mutants.

The Watcher started from the beginning of the hand again. He hit the middle finger and lost count. Bloody hell! He'd have to start over. Or could he get away with an inexact count? "Er. A long time."

Ilse nodded. "Yes. That's why I wanted to ask you."

"His name." He should remember that. The template. The one he was trying not to think about. Why? He upended the bottle over his mouth, and was surprised and disappointed when nothing came out. Damn that cheating bottle to hell! He had had just a sip, and now it was gone! He dropped the hand that held it, and flopped down on the bed. Syllables danced in his head. A dark, cold, smelly prison. "Cloist... Cust... Leftist... Lish... Listy..." He closed his eyes and frowned.

Ilse cocked her head askew as words that sounded vaguely like names trickled slowly out over the Watcher's lips. "What?" She moved closer to the edge of the chair, wishing there was a way to open her ears wider.

Some internal floodgate broke. A grinning, smug, happy-go-lucky, irritating face. The Watcher suddenly jerked back up to seated position. "Lister!"

The name! The Sleeper's name! That in itself was worth at least a couple of barrels of dried magic root. Ilse tasted the name, awed. "Lister..." she repeated, slowly.

"That smegging gerbil-faced goit." The Watcher had no problem remembering that part.

Ilse nodded. "Like us." On that, the stories were always clear. The Watcher had attempted to create a race in his image, but instead there was brought forth a people of gerbil-faced goits, and they spread out, and claimed the land as theirs. And the Watcher watched them, and said nothing, for thus was his way. She had always wondered what a 'gerbil' was.

The Watcher's mouth twisted. " _Just_ like you." Everything that drove me batty about him, he thought, is echoed in _you_ people.

It was true, then? They had kept the Sleeper's spirit alive in themselves? Ilse grew excited. "Really? Are we really like him?"

The Watcher looked at her. Images that he had forced into a dark corner of his mind were now at hand, and he ran through them. The villagers varied in appearance quite a bit - their only homogeneity being their smegging chirpy natures. This one... looked frighteningly like his memories of Lister. Warm brown skin, full cheeks, brown eyes that were too dark and expressive for being the balls of fluid he knew them to be. "Well," he replied, "a lot like."

Ilse leaned forward. Her braids fell from behind her back and slightly obscured the right side of her face. The Watcher had seen Lister with his clothes off a few times. Why? "You have nicer breasts," he slurred. Ilse giggled. Well, there were two of them, they didn't appear to have abnormal growths, and they were there. The Watcher could not remember having higher standards for breasts than that. "Not bigger, mind."

Ilse frowned. "Men don't have breasts." Was the Sleeper female? Had the stories been wrong about that? But the Watcher had said 'he'... She looked at her own breasts, in all their commonality. Slightly larger than a grown man's fist, round, dark nipples. Nothing special. Nice? Well, she'd been told that once or twice before. The Watcher was polite, if nothing else.

"Yesh, they do. Some." For a reason the Watcher could not understand, the word Hollister came to mind.

Nice, Ilsa thought again, and poked her breasts. They resisted just right, and she giggled. She'd been with one or two women when she was younger, and their breasts had been just like hers too. There was something safe about that. But a man with breasts like her? She giggled again.

The Watcher raised his eyebrows. Running around with their clothes off, playing with themselves whenever the mood struck them. He had been living with them for... he pulled himself back from that line of thought. He had been living with them for a smegging long time, and he still was not used to it. He hoped he never would be. _He_ had decency. "You people..."

"Us people what?" Ilse asked, cheerfully.

"No shame."

Ilse had expected new ideas, but not new words. There were so many of them! She tried to pronounce this one, and failed miserably. "Sh..ame?"

"Yesh," the Watcher replied, growing irritated. "It's shat thing that keeps you from running around without shirts on. It'sh what keeps you from partying all.. smegging... night."

Ilse shrugged again. "It's too hot for shirts." She didn't understand why the Watcher looked pointedly at his strange blue clothes, but it was probably not important. Other things were much more important, at any rate. She leaned forward again, excited with the prospect of learning. "Please, Watcher, tell me more about the Sleeper!"

The Watcher sat up, thinking of the elders. The sodding old farts who told windy tales around the fire. He adopted their style. Somehow, the bottle had lubricated his memory, and he thought of bunks and curries and a strange voice with elongated vowels. He had not thought of them in... he stopped that line of thought. "And lo, he did cheweth of his toenails and spittith them on bedsheets."

Ilse raised an eyebrow. Perhaps she'd made the brew _too_ potent?

"And did with his guitar make a most awful noise. And all were struck dumb." The Watcher nodded. Yes, that was Lister. Their smegging Sleeper.

"I don't know all those words," Ilse sighed in frustration. This was not what she'd expected at all. She was being told the story, but she couldn't understand it. She was going to fail, and everyone would tease her endlessly!

"I jusht bet." If there was one thing to be grateful for on this world, it was that musical instruments had never really caught on in that society. And most of the villagers had rather sweet voices, so their frequent all-night acapella sessions were bearable.

There was, Ilse realized, a gap between the Watcher and herself. A gap of words; a gap of understanding. No matter how he told her the story, she probably would not understand. But there had to be more; there had to be something he could tell her! "But was he... What was he like? Was he funny? Curious? Could he play good pranks?" The virtues, the traits they honored in one another, what they felt was important; they had to come from somewhere!

" _He_ thought so." So the goit wanted the smegging story, did she. He sifted through dusty memories, leaning back on the bed again. "First, I died..."

Not just words, but ideas; concepts kept them apart now. Ilse frowned deeply, leaning back. "I don't understand..." There was something disconcerting about the tone of the Watcher's voice. Weary, as though he'd seen too much; too much to remember it all and stay sane. That was a very frightening thought indeed, to a girl like Ilse, in a world like this.

"I thought it wash a bit of a downer, really. He was the last one alive. Now there's a whole smegging pack of you."

The other place. Realization hit Ilsa triumphantly in the chest. "Where you were from? He was the only person in the... the place? The place you came from?"

How smegging dense could a person be? "Yes, he was the only smegging goit left alive of the smegging human race!"

Words again, pushing understanding firmly out of her reach. "I..."

"Look..." The Watcher sat up again. It took a great deal of his attention. Once he was upright, he extended his hand. The smallest motion seemed to upset his balance, so he extended it, and one forefinger, with great care. " _I_ died."

Ilse looked at that hand, still frowning. Died? She'd seen dead people; she'd helped to bury them many times. They had not looked like the Watcher. Their hands had been stiff and cold, not elegant and expressive.

"Brought back. Like this. Keep him sane." Another point. Another finger. Careful, Watcher. Unfold, gently... there. " _He_ gets all smegging shot up. I drop him in the stasis pod."

Brought back, Ilse thought. From where? Death? But that was impossible! She gave him a long, hard look.

Oh, dear lord. These people were just as simple as Lister had been, weren't they? "You goiting grok a stasis pod?" he snapped. "No time passee." He started to hunt for another finger to extend.

Many of the stories praised the Watcher for his cleverness in words and deed, but Ilse was not impressed. Didn't he understand that if his words meant nothing to her, repeating them in a loud, clear voice could not possibly help? She gave him a slightly insulted look.

The Watcher was too focused on extending his favorite finger to notice. "We crash here. I try to clone me off to populate this planet. But the smegging clone kit needs real DNA, not an electronic copy." Another finger. This story was becoming quite a workout. The Watcher swayed with the effort of extending all of his fingers except for the pinky, but managed to pull it off. "So I clone him from one of his smegging toenail clippings that are scattered everywhere. Do you undershtand that?"

She must have put a wrong herb or two in that brew, Ilse thought. This man was completely smegging insane.

"Every. Smegging. Where." He shook his head. "Toenails."

Ilse grasped at the word she understood. "What's wrong with toenails?"

"Bits and pieces of them! Little.. curls... of kera... kear... keratin... in my bed..." He took a deep breath. "Itch like a bugger!"

"He was in your bed? Were you lovers?"

This caught the Watcher mid-breath, and he startled, hiccupping. "No! He spat them on my bed!"

"Oh."

"Jesus smegging Christ..." Lovers? King of the grease stain, the five-minute fart, the 1812 Overture belch? Enough. "Where was I..." he muttered. "Oh, yes." Easy, now - he had all the fingers, so he just had to extend his hand. "Cloning works. Yippee. Maybe I can evolve a civilization that can fix him up." He remembered this all too well. "The clone comes out of the pod, and I ask him if he's about ready to evolve. 'Oh, eh, what's the hurry?' he asks."

Ah, _that_ word Ilse knew! "We are a civilization," she proclaimed proudly. Civilization was important, the Watcher has said at the onset, so the stories told. And they had made one. They cared for the young, the elderly and the sick. They taught the youngsters skills and let the elders tell the Story. No one was hungry. No one was alone unless they wanted to be. They had achieved much.

"Hooch and smoke and party isn't a civilization!" the Watcher barked. "Won't smegging heal him up, now, will it?" He took a deep breath to rant more, but the breath stuck in his throat. Oh, smeg. His mouth fell open. The last fuzzy mental screens had come down. He remembered. He smegging remembered why he was here.

"Then what is?" Ilse asked, startled. The Watcher looked as though he really had died now, or was about to. His mouth was half-open in what looked like a scream, but nothing came out until he finally spoke. His eyes were oddly glassy, making their strange colors stand out in sharper relief.

"He's off in that smegging stasis pod... hole in him... hundreds of years now..." Whatever had been in that bottle, it was overflowing, and starting to leak out of his eyes. Oh, smegging hell, they were all dead, Lister almost dead...

Ilse nodded, slowly. This too was in the story. She had not really thought about its significance before now. The Sleeper was a person. Someone cared for him. The Watcher cared for him. "Yes. He must be whole again before our purpose is done." She saw the Watcher's tears and wondered.

"Your purpose? Your smegging purpose?" The Watcher staggered to his feet. He had been watching them for... a very long time, and had yet to discover a single non-hedonistic, non-impulsive drive in them.

"Oishmegheid?" Had she said something wrong? What in her words could possibly have angered him?

"Get drunk and fornicate? What do you... need him for... to do that?" His grammar had gone the way of his balance, it seemed.

Perhaps there was some etiquette, some sort of code from wherever it was the Watcher and Sleeper was from that she had not observed correctly. Not sure what else to do, Ilse suggested what was freely given among her people as a gesture of kindness and hospitality. "I can have sex with you, if you like..."

The Watcher choked again, and his eyes widened. Did someone just suggest sex with a chipmunk? This was too much for his brain to process, and he dropped back onto the bed.

"I mean, if that's what you want." She looked at him expectantly, hoping she had not offended again. Perhaps the offer had come too late?

"I want... Lisher.. back." The Watcher felt empty, defeated. After all of this... long time, the only thing they had discovered was hooch and inventive new ways to copulate. "And you shmeggers won't evolve."

Evolution; another familiar word. Ilse nodded. "Yes. Our purpose. You gave it to us, long ago." None of them knew what it meant; it had never been explained to them.

"Fat lot you did with it," the Watcher spat.

"Then tell us!" she replied, eagerly. "Tell me! How do we..." she rolled the word around on her tongue, "evolve?"

"I don't _know_! Build things! Get smarter!" A phrase leapt into his head. "Up the ziggurat!"

"Up..." Oh, what was the use. He was speaking another language. She started again. "What should we build?"

"Anything... anything but these sodding huts. Spaceports, hospitals..."

Things other than huts? What good was building something you couldn't live in? Were they doing it wrong? "What's wrong with them?"

What's wrong with them? What's right? How the smeg is this going to heal a hole in someone's sodding chest? "Oh, it was too much to ask from Lister's sodding clones, wasn't it!" the Watcher bellowed.

Equally frustrated, Ilse got out of chair and moved over to the bed on her knees. "I want to help! I just don't understand how!" She put her hand on his knee, wanting to comfort him, but how? He didn't respond like anyone she had ever met before.

The Watcher was drained. "Neither do I," he had to admit. He had no skills that were of use here, no ability to influence. Why should they evolve? He gave them no drive or incentive. "Shink I'm stuck here."

Stuck. But that implied he did not want to stay. Which meant... "And you want to go away. With him. To that place."

The Watcher concentrated. Images of metal and plastic, sickly lights, and a disembodied head floated in his mind. "That place. Red Dwarf." He tasted the name. It felt familiar, but long-unused.

Ilse tasted it, too. "Red Dwarf..." The place they came from. Where they wanted to return.

The Watcher looked at the wall over his bed. It was covered with marks made from a burnt stick. Ilse leaned her elbows on the edge of the bed, taking her hand off of his knee, and watched in fascination. "Lost track at three hundred... twentyshix," the Watcher muttered.

The tiny marks were unreal. All exactly the same length, in a line like a row of planted chewing-roots, but much more tidy. The wall looked almost black where they were, at a distance. Ilse stared. "Are those days?" Why would anyone want to _count_ days? There were so many of them... Had there been so many in her life?

Days? Smegging _days_? What kind of a game did she think this was? "Years."

Ilse's eyes widened. "Years..." she whispered. Her mind would not accept the concept.

"I've been here a while," the Watcher replied, acidly. "I think a little cabin fever is justified."

Ilse looked at him. "But you are young." The lines on his face were few, and his hair wasn't even shot through with grey.

The watcher tapped the symbol on his head. "I'm a hologram."

"Hologram." A jumble of meaningless sounds. Repeating them didn't help.

The Watcher sighed, impatiently. As dense as those scones that they cooked in the ashes, this one was. "I told you, I died!"

The stories she would be able to tell if she could only understand this! Ilsa concentrated hard. As she studied his face, something struck her. "That thing... on your head; is that what it means? That you are dead-but-alive?"

Ah, the Watcher remembered one good trick, at least. "I'll show you..." He concentrated, willing himself to incoporeality.

As Ilse stared, the Watcher seemed to... flicker, as though he was an image reflected in shallow water that had been disturbed. When he became still again, his clothes had changed, and were now... an equally striking _red_? Ilse gasped, falling away from the bed, scuttling over to the chair and grabbing its legs for support. What was this madness?

The bottle that he was holding fell through his hand and hit the bed with a dull thump. "Oops." The Watcher gave it a sad look. It had been good to him.

"Watcher..." Ilse clutched the chair, her eyes following the falling bottle. If he touched her, would she flicker and fade away too?

The Watcher frowned at her. Another piece of the puzzle had been shaken loose, and was rattling around in his head. "R..."

There was that 'R' again, but Ilse had no time to think about that now. "What is wrong with you?" Was he really dead? But if he was, how could he walk among them? There was nothing after you died, nothing but emptiness and the eternal dark.

"Ri..." Dammit, it was there! Just out of his grasp! He made a supreme effort. "Rimmer." Yes. That was him. He was Rimmer. He was smegging _Rimmer_! Not Watcher, not Oishmeghied. Rimmer!

"Are you sick?" If there was an illness around that could change the color of your clothes and make things fall through you, Ilse wanted to know about it! The worst she'd ever had was a cold.

"No, it'sh you smeggers who are sick." Rimmer sighed. "Running around half-naked, not a care in the world - no _gravity_! No sense of duty! No class!"

This can't be happening, Ilse thought. She renewed her grip on the chair, trying to think, trying to calm down.

The bottle. Good things were within. Things that made him feel... buzzy. Rimmer switched back to hard-light and picked up the bottle. He tried to drink, but was surprised that it was empty. He sighed.

The Watcher flickered again, and his clothes turned back into blue. It didn't seem half as strange the second time around. Relaxing, Ilse observed him for a moment, then got back to her feet. She could not understand this. He was from a different world. Everything about him was alien to her. How could she possibly have thought he could make her understand the Sleeper? He could not even make her understand himself. But there was no threat in him. She saw him shake the bottle upside down, and turned. No, there was no threat here. Only sadness.

"Dija... get your answers?" he asked.

"You've made me think, Watcher." And she was not done thinking. Perhaps she would have something to tell the others after all.

"That's a first," Rimmer grumbled.

She brushed her skirt off, straightening. "I will tell this story to the elders. We will all think on it."

"All of you. Yeah, that'll be a real first." He flopped onto the bed, face-first, his head in pillow. He was fitting the memories that had been shaken loose back into order. It was a dizzying task. One fact was rather glaring, however. "You know," he said, his voice muffled by the pillow. Ilse hesitated. "Ish been over nine hundred yearsh since I made love." He closed his eyes and breathed in a breath, one that turned to a buzz as he started to drift off.

As she was about to leave, the Watcher's words caught Ilsa unawares. This was absurdity on a whole different level. "That doesn't make sense." If he had not been utterly alone... and he had not been, for the Sleeper had been with him, he'd said so. Why had they not turned to one another for comfort? If he had wanted for closeness here, why had he not simply asked someone? You didn't deny a starving person food. Why would you deny sex to someone who needed it?

"Wha?" Rimmer asked, floating back to consciousness.

She sighed. No use. No use at all. "Never mind." And yet, so pointless; so senseless to suffer when there was no need! She grumbled; "I did offer..."

Rimmer looked at her, blearily. Young, round face. Easy smile. Braids. "You look like him. Nicer breasts. But like.... when we met."

"Yes, you said." She turned half-way towards him, catching his swaying, troubled face in the corner of her eye. He didn't look dead. He didn't look old either. He looked sad and lonely.

Rimmer was rambling, now. "He was shmegging gerbil-faced optimistic, too. Look where it got him. But he never asked to shleep with me."

Never lovers. But not, perhaps, for lack of wanting? Ilse smiled. "He should have. You're a gorgeous man." He was. It wasn't just the odd proportions of his body; his too-long legs and his slender frame, or his coloration, or the strange tones of his voice. There was something inside of him, something he was not allowing to roam free.

Rimmer frowned. "He didn... like me.." He felt drunkenly plaintive and pathetic, but his memories of Lister were becoming clearer the better he organized them, and one fact was inescapable. Lister had never called him gorgeous. Molecule mind, smeghead, dumbarse, sodding bastard, but never anything remotely like 'gorgeous.'

Yes, there was something there. And if she could see it... Ilse turned back towards him, taking a few steps towards the bed again. "But you said he was like me."

"Your hish clones. Yer all a lot likeim."

Ilse crossed her arms under her breasts. Rimmer lifted his head. Yes, they were breasts. Decently formed, not too big. He had seen any number of them running around outside, over the centuries. But he had yet to see them at such close quarters, and they improved on acquaintance.

"Well, if he was like me, then he thought you were gorgeous." She nodded, as if to punctuate. Simple logic. Frankly, she didn't see how anyone could fail to find this man attractive. He had a way of making you want to see _more_ of him. Hadn't she been on her way out?

"Maybe yer a myu.. tant."

She blushed. "Oh... I wish." She was common; all of her line were. People had told her parents to get their children sired by others, but they were in love. And love was the greatest virtue of all.

Rimmer's brow furrowed. Oh, that's right - they went smegging nuts over mutants in this society. "I don understhant you pe...ple."

"The birthers say I have no mutant traits at all."

"Nutters."

"I'm plain," she said, dissatisfied. It shouldn't upset her; everyone was worth the same, after all - and was she not about to become a Chosen One? What did looks matter? And none of her lovers had complained. Still, for someone who loved variety as much as she, being so common was almost painful.

Rimmer's eyebrows made the long, slow trek upwards. She looked... so like Lister. "Not... the ad... hective I'd use."

Oh really? Being found attractive always made her tingle, and he did look amazing... "Really?"

Rimmer had a very novel and fresh idea to express, and he did so with certainty "Y'r... a lot like him. Nicer breasts, though."

Ilse giggled loudly, dropping her arms and putting them on her hips, instead. "Yes, you said." Oh indeed, he was adorable! He may not have asked, but sometimes you got so weak from need that you couldn't catch a breath to call for aid. Smiling warmly, she walked up to bed. She got down on her knees, and grabbed the Watcher's hand, carefully. She would help him, if he was willing.

Rimmer carefully turned himself on his side, looking at the grasped hand. It suddenly struck him that he had something very important to communicate, something that she might not have grasped. He needed to tell her. "I should warn you. I shink I'm... just a little... drunk."

Ilse kissed his hand gently, then looked up. "And?" What did being drunk have to do with having sex? Well, except that it might be more fun?

Rimmer's mind blanked out. He repeated the last phrase. "Just a little."

"Everyone is a little drunk." The saying came automatically, without thinking. She realized too late that the Watcher might not have heard it.

In case she had not understood him, Rimmer tried to sign 'little' with two fingers. He had no success, and realized it was because she was holding his hand. He used the other hand, then tried to remember why he was doing that.

Yes, you dear sweet man, Ilse thought; you are quite drunk. She began to see why he'd tried to explain it. She had never heard of a man who had trouble having sex if he was drunk, but again; this man was very different. It was strangely hard to remember that, despite how obvious it was. She could still leave, of course. Sexual comfort should never be forced. But the thing was, she had to admit, that she couldn't leave him now even if she wanted to. And she really, _really_ didn't want to.

Rimmer looked at her face, feeling like he should share a novel observation with her. "You're a lot like him." He didn't notice Ilse's stifled giggle. He grabbed her braid and looked at it. Not a proper plait - a twisted, unwashed rasta plait. Strange, it didn't feel or smell unwashed. Nothing was right with these people; they couldn't even get the smell right! "Same face. Same braids. Same smegging braids."

"Yes, I have braids." She smiled, hesitated, then reached out with her free hand to touch his hair, very carefully. You never knew with this man; he might just disappear on her. "And you don't." Her smile grew warmer as he and his hair completely failed to grow intangible.

"No, I have a senshible haircut." Yes, he had warned Lister about the dangers of a hippie cut, and look where it had landed him. "It's hair for... action."

Ilse giggled, then snorted "Is it?" She stroked those loose curls gently, marveling at the texture of his hair. There were mutants with such hair, but none of them had ever looked twice in her direction.

Rimmer shook his head, closing his eyes. "You laugh.. the same. Used to annoy the smeg out of me."

"What, as him?" She was, she realized, enjoying herself rather a lot. Having sex with the Watcher! Well, she thought, someone had to do it. And no one had thought to before. The poor man.

"Shpill lager on my book. Giggle. Snort. Mucusy." He touched her cheek, wondering if that felt like Lister's, too. But he had no way of knowing, because he had never touched Lister's cheek, had he?

Ilse sighed. "You are lovely. I can't believe he never made a move on you." She mumbled, "Silly man..." Silly indeed. Silly, and not a little stupid. To be blessed with something like this, and waste it?

Rimmer frowned. "Me? Yeh..." No, Lister had never said anything vaguely like 'lovely' about him. Odd, what that randomization program would stick in.

"Nuh..." She licked her lips. "Well... you, too." You couldn't deny that he was more than a little odd. Her eyes sparkled, relishing the anticipation of what was to come.

Silly hardly seemed a strong enough word. "For getting shtuck on a planet with his smegging clones and him smegging frozen away like a side of beef." He looked at her braid.

"You'll get him back," she said, with a soft whisper, moving her hand down to stroke his cheek. If he could make himself intangible, surely he could do anything. Didn't he have any faith in himself at all?

"When pigsh fly," he replied, with conviction. He shivered as her hand crossed his cheek. He moved his hand from her cheek to her shoulder.

That shiver was delightful; Ilse felt she could almost taste it. She moved her hand around to stroke the hair at the back of his neck, tickling the tiny curls there, hair that felt almost like her own, but softer. She leaned over him, her breasts brushing against his chest, willing him to reach out and touch them. In truth, she wondered why he hadn't done so already. This too was exciting, in a way. She planted a very soft kiss on his lips, not wanting to overwhelm. After all, if it had been - she glanced at the series of marks on the wall - that long, he was more or less a virgin again, wasn't he?

Rimmer touched the top of her breast, very tentatively. This... this girl-Lister. "I can't remember if he had nicer breasts." He had hardly noticed, when they had changed bodies. Afterwards... he never had the chance.

"Don't worry about it..." she whispered. Why couldn't he lose himself in the now? Would he be talking and thinking all the while? That would be tiresome.

Rimmer turned all of the way over onto his back, nervously, as she climbed onto the bed and straddled him, putting her braids behind her shoulders. Rimmer touched her breasts, gently, with both hands - just his fingertips. Like Lister's? No, they couldn't be.

The touch was too light; too teasing. Ilse sighed deeply, took his hands, and pressed them hard against herself, pushing against them with her body; moving like she wanted him to move against her.

Rimmer grabbed them, then kneaded them like bread. Women's breasts. Visions flashed before his eyes, of a befuddled McGruder, of an unreal simulation of her, of Nirvanah's cool face. His brain promptly ran out of visions of breasts he had touched.

Hunger. She could feel the hunger, radiating from him. It was irresistible, like the rest of his enigmatic man, and it felt fantastic. Ilse groaned deeply, wondering if anyone outside could hear them; what must they think? The thought amused and aroused her equally.

"Nine... hundred... something." It didn't seem like that long. Well, maybe it did. He was achingly hard, but that somehow seemed to be an unimportant part of this situation.

Ilse leaned forward, kissing him deeply; wanting to drink all of him in, to taste this strange person who was dead-yet-alive. If this is what happened after you died, she wouldn't mind it all that much.

Rimmer sighed and kissed back, tasting grass and sunshine and a faint tang of her spirits. "I dunno.. if you taste like him," he muttered into her mouth. "Never got to try." No. Never would.

Ilse smiled through the kiss. "You are wearing too many clothes," she mumbled. They had always seemed absurd to her; now, doubly so.

Vaguely realizing his horniness, in a confused way, he raised his hands and started to undo the clasps on his jacket.

"And you wonder why we don't wear much clothes," Ilse purred, lustfully. Clothes got in the way of everything that was important. Sleeping, drinking, and her favorite thing of all...

"So you can get men to shleep with you. Works." He tried to get out of his jacket, and had to rise slightly.

Eager for more, Ilse hitched up her skirt, enjoying the feel of those strange, soft trousers rubbing against her. She let it drop and ran her hands over his exposed undershirt. The fabric was as different as his erection, which was longer and thinner than she was used to. There seemed to be a theme there; nothing about him was like anything she'd seen or heard or - oh yes - felt before.

The jacket disappeared as Rimmer tossed it away. Sensation was starting to demand its due, and he raised his hips to rub against her. He struggled out of his undershirt, and it, too disappeared as soon as it left his body. He started to lick her nipple. Larger, firmer than it should be, he thought absently, although it did feel delightful.

Ilsa paid no notice to his disappearing clothing. She threw her head back, pressing harder against his groin. No more thoughts now, just feeling. Pay attention, Watcher; this is how its done!

Rimmer pulled her close at the crotch, rubbing her up and down against him. He licked her nipples, enjoying the sensation, while still feeling, in the back of his mind, _not right_...

Ilse moaned as he bucked, grabbing his shoulders to hold on, wanting him inside her _now_. Right now, curse it! She moved with him a few times, then tried to pull down his trousers, gasping and shuddering at the feel of the thin, tight fabric sliding over taut muscles. All right, so maybe there was something to this clothes business after all.

Rimmer latched onto her shoulders. Strong, solid shoulders. They felt right. He licked and nipped at them. But they moved away, all too quickly.

Nice though they were, the trousers had to go, and luckily they put up no fight as Ilse pulled them down to his calves, where they hit his boots and stopped moving. She laughed happily as his erection waved in the breeze, up for grabs. She would kiss it if that wouldn't delay her other, more urgent plans. Instead, she moved back up him, grabbing his chin and kissing him deeply while lowering herself onto that erect, oh-so uncommon member.

Rimmer whimpered as she slid herself onto him. He tasted a fresh breeze and spring, and shouldn't he be tasting stale air and cigarettes? This wonderful warm wetness, too; where did _it_ come from?

The wonderful feeling of _fullness_ and lightning-bolt of sheer pleasure zinging into her as she slid all of the way down was the same, despite all those unfamiliarities, and Ilse smiled. She felt herself slotting into place, marveling, for a second, at the way two puzzle pieces such at odds could still fit together so smoothly. She broke the kiss and licked his lips, as she started to ride him very slowly.

Slowly would not do. Rimmer grabbed her hips and started to flop like a fish, pushing up into her to the point of leaving the bed slightly. "Sh.. been.. forever..." Incoherent things were coming out of his mouth, a fine match to his incoherent thoughts. "Just... like him..."

"That's... all right..." Ilse panted. Not the same, her brain thrilled, sending all kinds of pleasurable quivers through her. Unlike. _Unlike anything else_.

Rimmer grabbed her with one arm around the back of her waist, and one around her back . A strong back, a solid waist. These breasts between her and him. He kissed her, tasting spring and carefree young woman, and threw his head back. He yanked her in, very tightly, and bucked to shake the rickety bed.

No, hang on, thought Ilse, panting frantically, suddenly confused. His movements were too frantic, too soon. Even the virgins she had been with had never moved so quickly along. The wildness was intoxicating, and she felt herself being swept up in it, but it couldn't stop so _soon_! She had to try to slow it down, but she couldn't, not with this unbearable uninhibited wildness.

Spring air, a solid brown body, a cheeky grin, but now it was blood and grease and stale, too-long-recycled air, shrieks and panic and frantic fear. "Dave..." Rimmer moaned.

Well, that certainly wasn't her name. It wasn't the name of anyone she knew either. His lover? But she'd been certain... Oh. Thought was... difficult. Even without this confusion. Oh. Yes. _Yes_.

Rimmer grabbed her so hard that his nails dug into her skin, coming with a groan and a whine.

Yelping slightly at the feel of those nails, Ilse froze. As far as she was concerned, confused had left the area, and was now lost, asking stray animals on the path for directions.

Rimmer bucked into her, riding the aftershocks, not letting go. Smeg. No.

Ilse shook with frustration and tension. Curse it, no! What _was_ this? Not even plants had sex this quickly; she'd seen insects hang around in flowers for longer than this. She tried to move with the aftershocks, but it was all too obvious what they were and what they meant. He didn't let go, though. Right, this wasn't different, it was just plain _weird_.

Rimmer bent his head down, kissing her like he was drowning, and she was the only air. Her. This girl-Dave.

Ilse kissed him back, quite desperately, not that it helped much. She'd been relieved at first that he didn't fuss about and try to poke around her bits like he was looking for lost treasure (that annoyed her to no end), but now she'd take anything, _anything_! She moved on top of him despite herself, knowing it would probably hurt, but what the shit did he expect? But as she pushed and groaned, and tried to hold back, she felt... But no. Couldn't be. But... Yes. Yes? The Watcher was... re-firming inside her. So soon? Astonished was not an adequate word, but Ilse didn't have time to come up with one that was. She whooped and laughed, losing herself in frantic movement.

Rimmer kept his eyes closed. "Never... did this with..." No, he had never kissed him or held him or made love... so how did he know it was not just like this, after all? He choked off the rest of that sentence in a deep kiss.

More, more! Ilse's entire world had become one of want, of lust for _more_. She wished she didn't need to take time to breathe as she moved even more quickly. This particular difference was the biggest turn-on yet; she was close to coming just from the sheer novelty.

Rimmer did not loosen his grip. "Can't... remember." He could remember too much and to little. Why had he remembered all of this? It would take him forever to forget all of this. He would have to write a note to remind himself not to trust girls with offerings. Pin it to the wall.

Feeling... had to... skies, the sensation! Ilse pressed her breasts together, pushing them against the Watcher's face, his mouth, somewhere in that general direction, hoping that he'd do whatever he'd done to them earlier. She needed... Curses, she was _close_!

He could not avoid them. So distinctive, in taste, in feel, the softness, the resiliency of the nipples. He licked and sucked at them, as she seemed to enjoy it, keeping his eyes closed. Wetness was seeping out of his eyes, as well, and some part of him noted that her breasts were becoming a mess of damp.

Ilse moved faster, ever faster, feeling like she was about to break the bed with the vibrations of her frantic rocking, but soon enough she came with both a scream and a whimper. The Watcher bit her as she came, and she pressed against him, faint, disoriented, trying to catch her breath.

The sunlight was too bright, the laughter in the distance too loud; it pressed on his head, forcing its way through his eyelids, filtering through her moans. He pressed her tight, raised his legs - still bound together awkwardly at his calves with his pants - and thrust in a staccato burst, throwing his head back and huffing like a train with too little power trying to climb a steep hill.

Ilse felt faint and tried to hold on, knowing she had to, especially after this, but couldn't help collapsing against his shoulder as she finally felt him shudder under her.

Rimmer fell flat onto the bed, his grip going as flaccid as the bit of him that was in her. He sniffled. Allergies? Ilse fell with him. She shifted, and he slid out of her with a dull plop. He squeezed his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Noises in his head, now; the laughter in the distance, the screech of collapsing metal, explosions.... he drew in a shuddering breath.

Ilse shifted slightly, feeling awkward. It was strange to lie with someone who did not share her bursts of laughter; someone who did not _play_ as much as follow a strict program, walking from one stone to another across a river. She slid off of him, wondering that he didn't even seem to react as she did so. It was painfully obvious that he was trying to breathe slowly and regularly. She patted his chest, gently.

Rimmer twitched at the touch. Stubby fingers. Short nails. "Ehh..." he whimpered.

She kissed his cheek. "It's all right." She slipped gently out of bed, ending up on her knees beside it, holding his hand, not thinking. All thoughts seemed to have been drained out of her, as had his juices. Nothing slipped from between her thighs; which, while a welcome change, was just unnatural.

Rimmer shivered. All right. It was all smegging wrong. He dropped the hand that was holding his nose and looked up at the thatch roof. Water was trickling out of his eyes. "It's... shallover. Isn't it."

"What is?" she asked, quietly.

"Everything." What a stupid, smegging half-arsed plan. Evolve a society to fix Lister for you. Oh, yes, you're so _good_ at creating societies, Rimsy! Why hadn't it worked? Three hundred years, at least; they had no interest in civilization. Smegging hospitals. The pod had a small matter converter that could power it indefinitely on small amounts of local matter, and whatever his light bee used, it got plenty of it around here. They could be here until the world ended. Then what? Float between the stars with a smegging Listersickle?

Ilse felt absurdly, oddly maternal. How fitting it would be if this encounter was to leave her with child? But something inside her told her that would not be so. It was the wrong time of the month, at any rate. Pity. Their features would go well together. "No, you sweet man."

Rimmer turned on his side, facing the wall. She had no smegging clue. Little simpering Lister look-alike. He tried to breathe deep breaths. Although he didn't _need_ oxygen, they were supposed to be calming. They were overrated.

Ilse sighed, standing with a final squeeze of his hand. They spoke different language indeed, and there was no interpreter at hand. "Such a beautiful man," she mumbled, taking in his naked form, though that was not what she was referring to.

Rimmer lay there, facing the wall, his pants at his calves, his bum pointing out. He was emotionally exhausted, and between that, the liquor, and the sex, he fell into an uneasy sleep.

Had she helped at all? Alone and saddened was no way to leave a man. Ilse gave the sheet he was lying on a forlorn look, and tried to figure out how to get that over and across him. She had to give up; it would have been a largely pointless gesture, anyhow. She gave his side a gentle, loving stroke, adjusted her skirt, and headed towards the door. She'd come for the true story of the Sleeper, and she had gotten it. Not in so many words, but yes, she felt sure that she had gotten it. Ilse cast a worried look over her shoulder at the Watcher's whiffly snore.

Outside, sunshine and sweet laughter from afar greeted her. It was like returning to consciousness after a long, disturbing dream. She thought of the Sleeper, and the Watcher, and in the bright sun, her worried look turned into a determined, wide, and happy grin.

Ilse hurried towards the hut of the Chosen Ones. She had a story to tell.

 

"Your pleasure and pain responses will remain intact..."

Rimmer groaned and rubbed his sore head. Sod Legion. Why couldn't he have kept the pleasure responses intact and skipped the pain? Would that have been too much to ask? His head throbbed in a monotone tom-tom of dull, achy hangover. Smeg him to hell, he had gotten far too drunk. He had spent a good chunk of time carefully forgetting about all of the things that he couldn't change, and one blasted drunken night had undone all of that. He would have to start all over again, and make sure he never got drunk again.

Or slept with the local girls.

He rolled over and stuck his face in the pillow, stifling an agonized wail. What the smeg had she been on about? What the smeg had _he_ been on about? Missing Lister, loving Lister, kissing Lister? The lunacy of this place was contagious. Nothing for it but to just... smegging... forget it. Pretend it never happened. She would do the same, he was sure. Those stupid sodding villagers ran around, boinking everything that moved (and a few things that didn't), and nothing ever stuck with them.

Rimmer looked up. He had slept a good five hours, at least. The heat of midday had given way to a cool night, the night creatures (all very small and very benign) making quiet noises of a rustly and chirpy nature outside. A little fresh air might help with his hangover. Rimmer rolled out of bed, pulling his trousers up and willing his undershirt and jacket back into existence. He walked outside, rubbing the side of his head and moaning gently.

He stopped in his tracks. About a dozen women stood outside, all wearing the silly smegging braids of the Chosen Ones. Their hands were placed firmly on their hips and their backs were ramrod straight, their heads thrown back in what had become - disgustingly - their traditional greeting for him. "Oishmegheid!" they cried, in chorus.

Rimmer frowned until the sides of his mouth touched his boots. "What the swut do you want?" They were happy and giggly, from the teenagers to the middle-aged women, which was hardly a shock. But he felt an odd tension in their mirth.

One of them stepped forward, an angular-faced girl with pale skin. "We have come to honor your love for the Sleeper, Oishmegheid!" Behind her, a younger one, nineteen at most, piped up shyly, "We offer ourselves to you." Both women beamed at him, as though they were offering a plate of that ridiculously sweet fruit that grew everywhere.

The hangover started to throb in Rimmer's head like a jackhammer. "Oh, for fuck's sake!" he groaned.

Sporadic giggles and meaningful looks greeted his comment. He set his mouth and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Run home. All of you... gerbils."

Another young girl, this one with coal-black skin and oddly contrasting light brown eyes, gave him a confused look. "But we _are_ home, Watcher."

"Then run away from home," Rimmer grated. He looked at the two giggling teenagers. "You look about the right age," he added, critically. They did not shrink away as he scrutinized them, but rather seemed to stand up even straighter, pushing their naked breasts more or less in his face. This brought on very recent, very unwanted memories, and he glared at them even harder. Oh, smeg, that was a vicious circle and a half.

The impasse was broken, mercifully, by a middle-aged woman stepping forward, and demanding attention in that obnoxious way these people did without even saying a word. There was something in their stance, Rimmer decided. Something in the way they looked at you, like they were just so much more worthy of your time than whatever you were doing. "Ilse told us of your sexual prowess."

Rimmer's eyes widened. "My _what_?" This was like a dream. A very bad dream. He had often fantasized, back when he was alive, about leaving his room and being greeted by a pack of women who had heard of his impressive sexual prowess and wanted to try it for themselves. With condiments. But now that the dream had come true, it was with smegging certifiably insane clones of _Lister_? Maybe he _had_ died, back on Starbug, and was now in hell.

The last of the young ones, a slight, wiry girl with hair almost the color of straw, who had been hovering in the background, piped up. "We seek your guidance in improving ourselves, Oishmegheid!" Another one, who had been giving him lascivious glances since he stepped out of the hut, purred, "We wish to savor your difference." Her voice was a deep mezzo, flirting with alto and having secret affairs with tenor and baritone.

"It would improve... what's her face greatly to have her teeth knocked out," Rimmer grated. "Go on, smeg off."

Ignoring him completely - yes, they _were_ Listerine, weren't they? - they closed in on him. Rimmer started to back away towards his hut. Maybe he could dash inside on the pretext of getting some lotion, and leap out of the window. The woman who had first spoken spread her hands as she approached, a look of calm serenity on her gerbiloid features. "We only wish to honor you, Oishmegheid. Your love is blessed, as is your gloriously different body."

 _Love_? She couldn't possibly mean... "You have a gloriously different psyche, don't you? Nutters, the lot of you!"

She bowed her head, gravely. "Thank you."

Rimmer shook his head, bemused. "If I called you normal, well-adjusted individuals, would you take great offense?"

The youngest girl seemed to be overcoming her shyness. She pushed her way to the front of the pack of rabid clones, excitement shining in her eyes. "Let us pleasure you, Watcher!" She was practically jumping up and down, which did not exactly help keep Rimmer's mind off the fact that she wasn't wearing any clothes at all, beyond a few strings of wooden beads.

"You can pleasure me by pissing off," Rimmer snarled. The sporadic giggles only irritated him further. He pointed down the hill. "Get the smeg out of here!" he yelled. "Leave me the hell alone!"

The first speaker sighed, and a sadness crossed her face. "Very well. Nothing should be forced." The group started to shuffle off, mumbling and grumbling amongst themselves. Rimmer took a deep breath. The oldest of the group lingered, however, looking at him earnestly. Rimmer was about to give her some scathing comments, and had opened his mouth to do so, when she suddenly spoke. "Do not fear your love, Watcher."

I'll fear you smegging loonies, Rimmer thought. He turned away, walking towards the forest, towards the one place where he knew none of the blasted clones would follow.

The Watcher disappeared into the distance, and the woman sighed. It was as Ilse had said, if not worse. With a final, disapproving click of her tongue, she followed the others.

 

A hulking chunk of greenish metal sat in a clearing between several trees. They had grown around it, their roots tapping it nervously before finding better ground, and it was half-choked with wood and soft, green moss. A portion of it that showed a rectangular outline in the metal was clear of growth, however, as was a highly pitted and faded plastic square beside it. Rimmer lifted the plastic square and typed in a code that was far too familiar. After three hundred and... however many years, he did not think he was capable of forgetting it.

The door slid open with a yowling creak, clanging into the full-open position. Rimmer stepped inside, hit the Door Close switch, and bit his tongue as the door screeched back into place. As the pod had almost no contact with the outside world, it was still marginally grotty, becoming neither cleaner nor filthier as the years passed. One of the first things he had done on landing was to air it out, and so it no longer smelled like ship's air.

Rimmer wondered if that had been a good idea, as he settled himself on the floor with his back to the dull metal of the stasis bed. "I really screwed things up, didn't I, Listy?" he said, his voice loud in the small space. Stuck on this... planet. With these... nutters. He was smegging tired of it, their chirpiness and joy and blathering about love and happiness. He wanted to be back on Red Dwarf, or even, god help him, back on Starbug, where everything was meanness and petty insults and _comfortable_ and _safe_ , not all smegging nutty clones with alcohol and bare breasts and strange rituals to celebrate his smegging _lurve_ for his smegging grotty bunkmate. You know the situation is dire when you long for the sanity of times with Lister, Rimmer reflected. He put his head in his hands, rubbing his face, and tried to think, as he always did. Absolutely nothing came to him, as it always did. He stood and checked the readings on the pod, as he always did.

Absolutely nothing had changed. As it always did. They registered flat on every scale. Rimmer slid back down to a seated position, his back against the pod.

Flatline.

A feeling like having his spine hollowed out with a melon baller and refilled with ice water descended over him. Flatline. The readings measured vitals over time, and as time was not passing in the stasis pod, they would be recording his vitals immediately prior to being placed _in_ stasis.

Why hadn't he smegging thought of this before?

Because he would have gone batty, that's why. Lister was dead. He had been dead for over three hundred years. Rimmer sat and let that wash over him, like a smegging wave of sheep dip. No way on Mimas were those rodents out there going to evolve a cure for sodding _death_. He had spent three hundred and... however many years waiting for nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Zero. Thinking up synonyms was easier than thinking about what he was going to do next. His brain quailed from that, and insisted on thinking about smaller steps.

Like burying the smegger.


	2. Chapter 2

Leaving the body in the stasis pod was an appealing option, but that would just breed its own type of waiting. Rimmer felt an urge for some kind of _finality_. His lips twisted. Take the body to the village. That's what he'd do. He'd give them their sodding Sleeper, tell them he was now a Pushing Up Daisieser, and _they_ could smegging well bury him.

Rimmer stood, feeling eerily calm. Perhaps some part of him had seen those vitals and knew all along, had spent however many years curled up in a corner of his psyche with a bottle coming to terms with it, and was now ready. The procedure to open the pod was ludicrously easy; the only complication was a deliberate safety. He lifted the dull red cover of the safety and flipped it. After that, just two buttons pushed simultaneously, and the lid of the stasis pod slid back. Far too quickly. Rimmer found himself face-to-bloody-and-cold-face with Lister's body, blood no longer trickling from his forehead, his chest still. The hole in his chest was bigger than he remembered, observed the part of Rimmer that was not gibbering and jumping up and down in his mind. He reached out and touched Lister's neck, as if to assure himself that the computer had not simply misread the vitals. No blood ran under that rapidly cooling skin, and the feeling of _dead_ was so eerie that Rimmer jumped backwards. He stood in the middle of the room, grateful for the pod's high sides, as he could no longer see Lister from that vantage.

The chunk of meat that used to be Lister, that is.

It was a pity, in some ways, that he could not, as he could not see the hole in Lister's chest rapidly fill in and disappear, the gash in his forehead fade to nothing, or the bloodstains vanish from his grotty clothes.

 

Darkness. Darkness for ever and ever and ever, and nothing; cold endless nothing...

Then light. And then there were memories; faint, wooly memories of shaking hulls and smoke and sharp smells, and _pain_. Lister gave a deep, gushing, wheezing breath, loud and painful to hear, like trying to suck in a hurricane. There was no room for thought yet. His entire world consisted of air, far too little air; air that needed to be in his lungs.

Rimmer froze at the sound that came from the pod, his jaw working. His eyebrows tried to leap off of his head and huddle in a corner.

Lister breathed twice more, until his body was sufficiently satisfied that yes, it was, in fact, being supplied with oxygen. He blinked with unseeing eyes. Slowly, the world came into focus, sending signals to his befuddled brain as it gradually got used to working again. There. Oxygen: check. Neurons firing: Check. Sensory input being received: Check. Put it all together...

Through a mouth opening wider and wider, a primal, desperate wail escaped, rising in pitch and intensity, until it filled the narrow metal space, echoing from the walls, ending in frightened, choking noises, as Lister's thought processes began to set in, and he began to wish they hadn't.

Rimmer jumped away from the pod, landing on some long-unused lab equipment. He fell on his bum, smashing some of it. He stared at the pod, wide-eyed. What the smeg was that noise?

Pure reflex made Lister sit up in one rapid motion. He shivered, taking in the environment around him. It looked familiar, yet not; metal walls, panels, wires, but the positions they were in and what they looked like... He blinked. The smell, too, the smell was all wrong. And there was something odd about the light. It felt wrong - it just all felt wrong. He felt like he'd been sent through a garbage compacter and straightened out again in under a second.

No. This was... this was some hallucination brought on by being too close to some of those clones smoking that weed they loved. Rimmer scrabbled backwards, hitting the pod wall. He pointed at Lister with an unsteady finger, as if putting his finger in his field of vision would dispel anything less real than it. "Wh... h..."

Lister had no sense of place, no sense of self. There was only a vague, blurry sense of who he was floating around his mind in a cloud of displaced ideas and memories. Causality seemed to have stopped working; he hadn't been here a moment ago, had he? He was crying, he realized suddenly; holding onto himself as though he was afraid he might lose his body, too.

The finger point had not had the intended effect. Rimmer got to his feet, pressing himself against the pod wall, wishing that he did not have a light bee. He wanted to turn to soft light and just fall through it.

As his head jerked around this way and that, looking for some point of reference, Lister's eyes caught Rimmer. He'd never been so glad to see the hologram in his life. Finally, here was a something known; something safe! Shaking like a leaf, he managed a weak, almost inaudible "Rimmer...?"

"Wh... h..." Rimmer's voice was not working properly. This was an even worse dream than the one earlier. Hallucinations. It had to be. No, his light bee was malfunctioning. Or maybe, after all this time, he was finally bonkers. Hell. Hell! He slid across the wall to the pod door, his fight-or-flight responses calling in a loud chorus for the latter.

Yes, _yes_ , it was Rimmer! For reasons as fuzzy as his clouded memories, this made Lister feel at _home_ on a very basic level. In a louder, warmer voice, he asked, "Rimmer?" Finally, he knew he wasn't insane; Rimmer was there. Whatever had happened, they'd work it out together. Part of him that was not entirely awake yet insisted that Rimmer might actually be more of a hindrance than a help, but at the moment, staying conscious and sitting upright were taking far too much of Lister's attention.

Rimmer stumbled back through the door. "G... get the smeg away from me!" He tripped over some green, leafy thing, and fell into the soft undergrowth, scrabbling backwards.

Lister's teeth were chattering. Memory was returning, mercilessly. "They... We... I..." An explosion. Their future selves. Something must have happened, he thought, returning to the here and now. The time-drive? Rimmer would know; he should ask... but the hologram wasn't there. "Rimmer?" The hologram had been his only link to sanity. Now he was totally lost. He felt his body spasm; he wanted to throw up. He had to get out of here. If only his limbs would obey him! Shit. What the hell was this place? He was all alone, and probably going completely mad, by the looks of it. Seeing Rimmer, not seeing Rimmer... Lister's chest hurt. Quite a lot of him hurt, in fact. His forehead, his arms, his legs, his gut. It was like being majorly hung-over without the slight comfort that at least you'd had a good time the night before.

Lister grabbed the sides of the pod, and rested for a moment. Smeg, what was wrong with him? Just grabbing the smegging pod and getting out shouldn't be so hard! With a massive heave, he got himself over the side, falling to the floor with an unpleasant oomph. Landing on his ass meant no bones were probably broken, but it was no more comfortable for that reassuring thought. Sore, scared, hurting, he crawled towards that too-bright opening that was the only way out of wherever it was he'd ended up. His jumpsuit caught on the metal rivets of the floor, hindering his progress, and his hands hurt from the effort. Had he drunk himself into this mess? It wasn't impossible. He'd drunk his way to Mimas, after all. Maybe he'd drunk himself back there, three million years into the past. That would certainly explain the state of him.

Rimmer pushed backwards through the undergrowth until he backed up against a tree. He stood there, braced against it, staring at the pod with eyes like saucers, as if daring it to spit anything else out at him. It obliged. The Lister-looking thing stumbled out of the pod, as if its legs were not functioning properly. It fell, crying out in pain. Rimmer grabbed the tree with both hands, looking at this... thing that should not exist.

Something - a step, perhaps? - sharp and metallic, scraped across Lister's stomach as he slithered out of the narrow space and into... sunlight? Smells, sights and sounds bombarded him, making his intestines flop about inside him in confusion and disorientation. He crawled a few feet further, just enough to get him away from that sharp whatever, and lay still. He had no more energy left in him. Alone. He was smegging alone, god knows where, and he going mental. Lovely. Giving up, he started sobbing very quietly, breathing in too-clean air and healthy soil. It wasn't helping. He couldn't even raise his head.

Rimmer's jaw worked. "What..." he squeaked. The Lister-thing made no reaction, merely sobbed quietly, looking so much like Lister... Rimmer yelled, loudly, "What the smegging fuck is going _on_?" His voice was almost a wail at the end.

A voice. _Rimmer's_ voice. So he _was_ here after all? Then why had the smegger left him? Irritation and anger giving him extra reserves, Lister raised himself up on one arm. Looking up, squinting, he could just about see a very familiar face glaring at him like he was about to be attacked. "Where 'm I..." he asked, weakly. "We was... We was..."

He _was_ , Rimmer's brain gibbered. He should not be _is_. "You were smegging dead!" Rimmer shrieked. "Dead as a c... c..." He couldn't finish.

The extra reserves gave out, and Lister fell down again, hurting his jaw. He swore, getting dirt into his mouth and nose, making him swear and spit again. "Whurey t'n 'bout?" he asked the ground, trying not to repeat the process.

This couldn't be a hallucination. It was too solid, too enduring, too smegging lifelike. Maybe he _was_ going nuts. No. He would not allow that. Something was here, something that looked like Lister, and he was smegging _damned_ if it was going to make him think he was crazy! Rimmer pushed himself away from the tree, walking towards Lister. "What did you _do_?"

It's not bloody hard, Lister told himself; just lift your head and move your eyes. It took some doing, but he got there in the end. "D... Do?"

Rimmer leaned down, grabbing Lister's collar, and hauled him up with a manic strength. "What did you _do_?" Tears of anger were starting to seep out of his eyes. How _dare_ this... whatever-it-was take Lister's shape? Lie where Lister had lain? The _thing_ shook along with Rimmer's unsteady hands.

Lister yelped in pain and surprise, his tortured body echoing his earlier swear-words in protest. Rimmer had gone mad. Rimmer, not him. This gave him some relief for about half a second, before he realized the consequences this implied. Shit. He tried to breathe. He could not struggle, could not speak. Helpless in a crazed Rimmer's arms. His prospects were not good.

Sodding _thing_... "What did you grotting well do, you useless smegging pile of dormouse droppings?"

Lister started coughing pathetically. Yes, pathetic was the word. I wish I knew, Rimmer, he thought, as his brain swished back and forth in its fluid-filled basin. On the whole, it felt there had been rather enough of that now.

Same face. Same facial expressions. Same braids. Same smell. "Stop it!" he yelled in the _thing_ 's face.

In a desperate attempt at self-preservation, his brain forced out one word. "Wha?"

"Gaaaah!" Rimmer spat. The same fecking scouser voice.

More words. They were all he had, and he needed them, dammit! "Rimmer... man... hurting... me..."

"I can't hurt a smegging dead man, can I?" Rimmer shrieked. "Who are you?"

"Don't..." Lister's eyes were wet. He didn't know what to do to stop this, and it hurt! And Rimmer was looking at him like he didn't know him, but with such _anger_! Nothing made any kind of sense anymore. Lister wanted to go home; fall asleep and then wake up from this nightmare. "Don't... under... under.."

"Stop playing with me!" Rimmer yelled, in his face. It was no good. This _thing_ was unrepentant. Fine. It could have its fun. He dropped the _thing_ , spun on his toe, and started to stride away.

Dropping hard to the ground for the second time in rather rapid succession, Lister squealed in pain, and panicked. Rimmer trying to kill him was bad, but being left alone in this place was no good either. As loud as his protesting lungs would let him, Lister yelled, "Arnold Judas Rimmer!"

Rimmer stopped like he had been shot. The first two. They were his name, too, the parts he hadn't thought of in... How did this sodding _thing_ know? He spun back around, his hands shaking.

"What... What the smeg..." Lister asked, more quietly, more out of necessity than anything else. He sat up, feeling at his throat. He seemed to be OK. Which, he added mentally, noting the contortions performed by the hologram's facial features, was more than he could say for Rimmer. As the crazed, fretting man seemed to do little else but stare at him, Lister finally had time to come to terms with the fact that he was clearly in some sort of... nature. That odd brightness was warm, pleasant sunlight. His skin soaked it up like a rain-starved desert soaked up water. Sunlight. That was quite good, actually.

"You're... you were..." Rimmer was babbling. His world was cracking at the seams, ready to fall apart. "Dead."

There was a... calming influence about this place. Sitting on the ground, every inch of his body aching, Lister nonetheless started feeling strangely at peace, like he belonged. He turned his attention back to Rimmer, seeing him as though for the first time, starting at his boots and moving his gaze up his body very, very slowly. Same tight blue trousers. Same ridiculous jacket. Same stubbornly neat hairstyle, trying to control curls that were never meant to be kept in captivity. And yet, something was different. He studied that too-familiar face, grasping for what it might be. "I don't think I am anymore."

"Dead men don't walk!" Rimmer spat.

Despite his weakness, Lister raised an eyebrow. "Right." He paused for breath, annoyed that he had to. "And that's just a novelty tattoo on... on yer fore.. head. Eh?"

Lister's face looked at him, all chirpy, just like his sodding clones'. His sodding clones. It all fell into place with a crash that dwarfed the 2065 fall of the Euro. She had brought the prank to him, and he had fallen for it. So one of the smeggers had decided to one-up her, in that way they did. Some smegger who looked a lot like their sodding Sleeper. Who had hidden and watched the Watcher type the code to enter the pod. Who had found the Watcher's real name in the logs somewhere. Just the type of blasted thing those goits would think was _really funny_. Rimmer's voice fell out like three hundred years and change had been stuffed into it. "Stop it."

So much for trying to find the difference, Lister thought. There it was, right there, that _ancient_ voice. Lister stopped and stared.

Rimmer slid to a seated position, reality washing over him, sweeping away all of his energy, leaving only an icily calm deadness. "I can't take... pranks."

"What happened..." Lister asked, in a still voice. Whatever had happened to Rimmer, it clearly had not been as pleasant as this place - this planet - felt.

"I don't smegging know!" Rimmer squeaked. "If you don't know what you are, how can I?"

"But... eh?" Lister squinted into the too-bright sunlight. "It's me, Lister. Dave."

"Dave is dead."

"Yeah, you keep saying. But I'm not, am I?" Lister resisted the urge to look for an 'H' on his forehead. He'd know if he was dead, wouldn't he?

"You're not Dave," Rimmer growled. "You're one of... them."

Lister shook his head, shuffling into a seated position. There had to be something seriously wrong with Rimmer. He glanced back in the direction he had crawled from. A pod. They must have crashed here - wherever _here_ was; he'd been knocked unconscious, and something had happened to Rimmer. He watched the hologram, his expression as unreadable as ever, but with things lurking under the surface that chilled Lister to the bone. Oh yes. Something _bad_.

Anger was brewing in Rimmer. It was just like Lister. The crap _he_ had found funny. "Bastards!" Rimmer spat.

Lister gave a deep, deeeep, here-we-go-again sigh. "I'm one of _who_ , Rimmer?"

"Smegging pranking goited bastards! It's not _funny_!" Rimmer staggered to his feet. "It's not. Not fair." His nose was itching. He rubbed it with the back of his hand, and a smear of mucus came away.

 _Crying_ , now? Rimmer never showed emotions other than fear or delight in other people's misfortune. "What the smegging hell are ye on about, man?"

Rimmer turned to the tree he had been leaning against before, and started to pound on it with his fist. That, at least, felt better. "Ask the smegging Chosen Ones," he spat at the tree. "You smegging clones..."

Whatever it is, Lister thought, it isn't the tree's fault. He exhaled deeply, flopping down on his back. Space-crazy. The man had gone off his rocker completely. In fact, he was off the rocker and airborne, flying off into the bushes somewhere. Chosen Ones. What the smeg? And clones... Lister frowned. His clones? "Eh?"

"Lister's dead. No reason for you," Rimmer told the tree.

Lister stood up again, feeling quite dizzy. So they were on this again, now. "Rimmer, fer smeg's sake, I'm not bloody _dead_!"

"That's not.. possible," Rimmer told the tree. It rustled slightly, not replying. "They killed Lister. Lister. Cat. Kryten."

"Neither is me waking up here after getting shot by those twonks on Starbug, but there it is, man." Lister paused as the rest of Rimmer's words penetrated. "They what?"

Rimmer forced himself to see the scene. Cat, lying on the floor. Kryten, smoking and sparking. Lister, with a hole a professional body piercer would envy. "All of you. Dead," he told the tree. It chose that moment to rustle its branches again in a breeze he didn't feel, brushing its leaves over his face. He batted them away with a shuddering sigh. He was in no mood to be soothed by a sodding tree.

"Stop talking to that fecking tree!" Lister yelled. The tree's branches waved, making a gesture that reminded him oddly of someone turning up his nose. If this place wasn't so comfortable, he'd be weirded out by that, he decided.

Rimmer jumped slightly and turned, meeting that special glare Lister reserved for Rimmer being particularly obstinate. Arms crossed over chest, legs spread his legs out in front of him. He'd had it up to _here_ with the swutting dead man, starkers or not.

Rimmer frowned. That was a very familiar gesture. The clones used it all the time, mostly for misbehaving children. Oh, so this clone thought there was something _wrong_ with him not playing along? An anger of a different and much more comfortable sort raised its head, and he embraced it, staring levelly at the clone.

Time to get up, Lister thought, pulling his legs towards himself and mulling the prospect over. He needed to brace himself for this. He leaned his head onto his knees. "Rimmer, yer crazy. Ye've gone space-crazy."

Rimmer sneered. He was onto the bugger. "You'd like to make me believe that. You love pranks, don't you smeggers?"

"No, actually I'd rather prefer it if ya started making some kind of goited sense!" Lister sighed into his knees. Fat chance. This was _Rimmer_.

Rimmer turned away. "Go back to your village... with your smegging pranks and liquor and naked women..."

"Wha?" He's crazy, Lister's common sense insisted, but other parts of his organ of reason (and his organ of unreason) sat up and started paying close attention.

"You've had your fun," Rimmer grated.

"Well, not really, but it looks like I might..." A fierce internal argument had erupted among Lister's organs. Common sense was trying hard to prevail, but it had three million years of celibacy to fight against. It was tough going.

Rimmer started to walk away, tiredly. Back to his hut. To scream a little bit. Maybe figure out a way to exterminate the whole sodding race. No, just pick up and move. Nothing was keeping him here anymore, after all, so why not relocate somewhere farther away from those twonks?

Lister yelled after him. "Oh, come _on_ , man! Give us a break!"

Rimmer's lip twisted. Oh, the clone hadn't quite expected to get lost, now, had he? Rimmer pointed back towards the village. "Over there. Just stay away from my smegging hut."

"Yeah, thanks. I'll get right on that after I get used to me own muscles!" Lister spat back, swearing under his breath. _His_ hut? How long had Rimmer been there? That ancient voice sounded in his mind, but he tried not to think about it. He'd deal with one thing at a time, beginning with how the goited hell he was going to get up without the full control of his legs.

Rimmer looked back. The clone did seem to have some trouble getting to his feet. Maybe he had sprained something when he clambered out of the stasis pod. Served him bloody well right. If only he had broken his stupid thick head. Rimmer strode over, grabbed him, and hauled him to his feet. "For fuck's sake, stop it!" he groused, feeling like he was raising a petulant and obstinate child to its feet.

Lister oofed. "Thanks man. Ye can let go now, I think I can just manage," he choked out. He wasn't sure, but he was damn well going to. Right now he trusted Rimmer even less than usual.

Rimmer let him go with a glare. Stupid smegging twonks. Wanting his help after a prank that was breathtakingly tasteless, even by _their_ standards.

Lister tried out his balance. He remained standing, but only just. "Thanks, smeghead," he said, sprinkling sarcasm over the words like confectionary sugar on a doughnut.

Ah, so they _did_ remember what it really meant. Passed on the real pronunciation in secret, just to dig out for a really good jape. "God, you are mean bastards, all you lot." Rimmer shook his head, biting his lip. It might feel good to punch this twit, he thought.

Rimmer was still sounding about as sane as a substitute teacher after an afternoon with a class of sixth-formers the last day of classes before summer hols. Lister looked around, scratching his head. "You said there was a village, yeah?"

"You know bloody well where it is," Rimmer snapped. He pointed one finger in its direction. It described a shivering arc. "Go.. fecking..."

"We need to let Kryte..." Lister bit his lip. Dead, Rimmer had said. Him and Cat both. But Lister wasn't dead, was he? Still, Lister had a very bad feeling about this, very bad indeed. Krytes would never have let Rimmer get into this kind of a state. "Right. Yeah. Wish I knew how to run a diagnostic on yer bee. I'm just a chicken soup repairman."

No doubt at all remained in Rimmer's mind that he would feel a whole lot better if he punched this clone. "Bastards!" he spat, then turned and ran. He must have dug all of the way through the records on that pod, and found the auto-download of the crew's complement. Scattering out little details to show off what a _marvelous_ prankster he was.

Lister looked after him, and gave a very deep sigh. Never a dull moment with Arnold Rimmer, was there? He hobbled after the hologram.

Rimmer was making lousy progress. He could not see very well, for some reason; everything was blurry, and he kept falling and running into trees. "Rimmer!" he heard, from behind him. His legs became entangled in a vine, and he fell flat on his face. He sat up and tried to untangle himself, rubbing his sore nose.

"You need help, man! Something must have messed up yer systems!" Lister panted. His legs still weren't working as well as they should, and he'd never been much of an outdoorsman. "I just want to help ye!" He finally caught up with Rimmer, tangled in undergrowth, his face a nostrilene study in please-fecking-stop-it.

Any boundary of respectable pranking was long gone. Weren't you supposed to stop when the other person was wise to you? Or was this some kind of initiation ritual, with an endpoint too esoteric for Rimmer to understand? "Why are you doing this?" he asked, his voice small. "Joke over."

"It's _not_ a joke, man." Joke, hell; seeing Rimmer like this was not funny.

"I don't know what you did with Lister's body..." Somehow, this didn't seem important. Just a dead husk. One that would rot away all too quickly. Nothing of Lister left in the body except for the form, and at least some of the smegging clones had that preserved already, didn't they?

"I don't know what yer talking about, but I'm not pulling any smegging prank. I _am_ Lister." Rimmer's words were downright eerie. His body? The way he'd said it - it was as though he'd seen it for himself.

"Can't be." Rimmer tried to make his voice authoritative, but it choked pathetically.

"Me. Dave." Lister pointed to himself, which should have been unnecessary, but the way this conversation was going, it apparently paid to spoon-feed information. "'S me, man. Don't ya remember me?"

"Of course I smegging remember... Lister!" Rimmer snapped. These vines were not letting his feet go without a struggle. They didn't hurt, though, thank whatever deity those clones refused to believe in; they just held him there, firmly.

"Yeah, that's the ticket!" Lister grinned. Maybe the damage wasn't that severe. Heck, maybe Rimmer was just suffering from some kind of shock. He tried to slap the hologram's back, but Rimmer jerked away, shaking. "Dave Lister, yeah?" Rimmer's lip curled "You know me."

"Of course I smegging know... Lister," Rimmer growled. "I put him in that pod..." Rimmer pointed back, towards the pod. Maybe if he explained this slowly and carefully, the clone would finally grok that the joke was smegging _over_. It looked back in the direction Rimmer pointed. "...and put him into stasis." Rimmer's lip quivered. This was not going to be easy. But if it finally penetrated that jackarse's thick skull, he would do it.

"Oh, eh." What could you say? No wonder Rimmer had thought he was dead; those pods malfunctioned all the time. And this was one they'd snagged off another ship; the vitals readings were probably completely off kilter. Didn't explain why he'd put him in there in the first place, though.

"Too fecking late. The readouts... I never noticed them before."

"So I was in stasis, then. Figures, that."

"Flatline," Rimmer growled. "Stasis isn't flatline."

"No, it's not. Look," Lister said, exasperated, "I'm _not dead_." He poked his arm. "See? Real." What would it take to convince the man; nude summersaults?

Of course he was grotting well real. "That's because I fecking cloned you buggers off!" Rimmer shouted. "With a targeted randomizer. Made you and the fish and the sodding furry woodland creatures and," he waved his arms at the Lister-generated flora, "the smegging goited trees. Thought you would build a society and fix him up. But he's dead."

"Rimmer, there's only one of me," Lister sighed, tired. Rimmer was flashing back to that time he'd been marooned on a planet with his own clones, no doubt. Whatever was wrong with his bee must be making it worse.

Rimmer pointed in the direction of the village again. "There's hundreds of you smeggers!"

Fine. If he wasn't giving up, Lister would humor him. Maybe, if he managed to calm him down enough, Rimmer would let him get at the bee. "Yeah, yeah, sure there is."

Ah, he had gotten the clone to admit it. Maybe that meant the prank was finally _over_. Rimmer felt icily calm again. "Yes, of course. You got lost, didn't you. Thought you could just rodent your way back."

"Lost? Nah, man, you put me in stasis, you said."

Rimmer rolled his eyes to the heavens. Smegging _damn_ it, how long was this going to go on?

"Look, just let me have a look at yer bee. Maybe I can suss out what the problem is." Lister held out his hand, hoping that sheer persistence would pay off.

Beyond a prank. Getting into... violation. "I am not letting one of you... fecking bums put your hand on my bee," Rimmer said, holding onto that icy calm. "Look. You got lost. Fine. This way." He got to his feet, kicking away the rest of the vines, and started to stride purposefully towards the nearby edge of the small woods. His vision was clear.

Oh, sod this for a bag of crisps! Yeah, Rimmer was hard to deal with, but it had never been like this! Visions of years alone in this smeg-forsaken place with just a nutty hologram for company prodded Lister's mind. He was almost crying in desperation. "What the hell, man!"

"This. Way." Rimmer noted that the clone was following. Good. He'd be so grateful to get back home and hit the booze and the sex that he'd stop smegging bothering Rimmer.

"Look, yer sick. I dunno what happened, but maybe we crashed, and ya got bumped or something."

Rimmer ignored the clone's words, walking towards the village as fast as he could without running.

Lister struggled to keep up. He had no idea where they were headed, and he strongly suspected Rimmer didn't either. He had to stop this, before Rimmer killed them both through sheer stubborn confusion. When he could get the breath for it, he called out, "I swear, I won't hurt ya or anything, just give me that bee!"

That must be another facet of the prank. If he could get his hands on the Watcher's bee, he'd become a Chosen One, or get a lifetime's supply of that stinking leaf, or bonk the three best-looking women and two best-looking men in the village, simultaneously. Rimmer shook his head and kept walking, as the clone groaned behind him. He paid it no heed.

Rimmer reached the edge of the trees, pointing down at the village. "Down there. Join your... brainless brethren."

Lister squinted. There _did_ seem to be something down there. How had Rimmer known? If he'd been here long, why hadn't he woken Lister sooner? "Yeah, fine, there's a GELF village. So what?"

"Stop it." Rimmer's voice was dead. He turned away, walking towards his hut. "Just leave me the smeg alone. That wasn't... fecking... funny."

"Rimmer, there is no way in smegging hell you are going to make me believe there's a... " People were running out of the village towards Lister. They didn't look particularly furry, or fat, or ugly. Actual people, he realized with astonishment. Humans. "...tribe of..." Oh smeg. Lister stood perfectly still as villagers flocked towards him, all different, but each one looking like a long-lost cousin, or brother, or sister, or aunt. "R... Rimmer..." he said, nervously. "Rimmer man, I take it all back, I believe ya, just get me the smeg out of here!" What the hell was going on?

The villagers were calling something that sounded like 'sleeper', over and over again. A lean, long-haired woman - her hair, unlike many of the others, unbraided - ran ahead of the others, calling back, "Sleeper! The Sleeper has awakened!"

She passed a young boy of about sixteen napping in the mid-day sun, waking him with her cries. Throwing his braids behind his back, he looked up, alert. "What?" When she didn't stop, the boy rushed to his feet and followed her, giggling in anticipation of whatever was about to happen. With this much of a ruckus, it would have to be something spectacular.

It was hard, especially given the workout his body had just been subjected to, but Lister tried to whisper and shout at the same time. "Riiiimmmeeeerrrrr...." There was no reply - and at any rate, there was very little the hologram could possibly do, as the first villager had already reached Lister and was standing in front of him, shining as much as the bright sun.

"Blessed Sleeper," she beamed, taking a garland of what looked like dried leaves from around her neck and holding it out as an offering, "you have returned! Our purpose is fulfilled!" Lister sniffed at the leaves, cautiously. Oh. Interesting...

Rimmer turned as he neared his hut, and watched the proceedings from a very solid distance away. Oh, this was rich. That clone had not told the others about his little prank, and they honestly _did_ think he was the Sleeper. They'd get a shock later. Or maybe they'd just have a huge party and not give a swut. The latter was more likely.

As it always did, commotion and excitement spread like the viruses this planet didn't have through the population, and soon a horde of villagers were making their way towards the strangely clothed man who surely must be the blessed Sleeper. "The Sleeper?" a young woman, still wet from the swim she had interrupted to see the commotion, yelled as she ran, "Is it true?"

Her primary lover, a sandy-skinned, broadly-grinning man, quite common in both looks and stature, caught her in an embrace. "Yes, Lena!" he beamed, "It is truly him!" They laughed and kissed as they called to their friends and family, urging them forwards. The Sleeper! The Sleeper was here!

The swimmer (an apprenticed Chosen One) paused in her excitement as something occurred to her. "Where is The Watcher? We must tell him!"

"I think he's over there," her lover said as they neared the figure whose name they did not know was Lister, panting. Already in the distance, Rimmer walked away rapidly. They could have their smegging party without him.

"Erm... Hiya." Lister glanced with confusion at the eager villagers surrounding him.

"Sleeper!" someone cried. It was impossible to tell who it was through this sea of bodies. Bodies that one and all, in some way or another, looked like _him_. Clones, he thought. What on Earth had Rimmer _done_?

Lister started as an older man, his thick beard already white, grabbed his shoulders. "Sleeper! We welcome you," he announced, to the cheering and whooping of the rest of the crowd. There was something oddly infectious about their smiles, and Lister soon found himself laughing and cheering along, despite an ever-growing sense of _what the smeg_ infusing him.

"Where did the Watcher go?" The question came from the woman who first approached him. She was staring off in the general direction Rimmer had gone off in. The Watcher? Was that their name for Rimmer? Hell, Lister thought, for the umpteeth time, how _long_ had he been here?

The Watcher was haring it towards his hut. He pounded inside, collapsing on his bed, making a strange half-wheeze half-whine. Lister was dead. He was... hell, he was free, now. Free to get away from these smegging villagers he only called into existence to heal up Lister, anyway. He could travel. He could see the rest of this planet. He could work out some way to get that pod mobile again and find another planet. He closed his eyes and made an odd squeaking noise into the straw mattress.

"Look, youse guys look real friendly and all..." Lister said, hesitantly, as several of the better-looking younger people put several of those dried-leaf necklaces around his neck, "but really, I should be..." He was cut short by a woman about his height (they were all about his height, save for a few of the women), who planted an enthusiastic kiss straight on his not-all-too-protesting lips. Well. He supposed he could stay for a little bit.

 

It was, Lister told himself, rather like waking up in the middle of the night with an intense craving for _something_ , flip-flopping your way into the kitchen for a snack, knowing that all you had in the fridge was a brown head of lettuce and last night's half-eaten kebab, only to be presented with three naked women covered in liquor, ready to feed you an impressive array of exotic fruits, drinks and cigarettes. He shook his head politely to the naked brunette to his left, who was carrying a bowl overflowing with ripe, sweet, purple fruit, pausing only to lick whatever concoction she'd been bathing herself in off the inside of her wrist. His head swam just from the smell of it; the taste branded itself onto his tongue rather pleasantly. She thrilled chirpily, and slinked off to offer her bounty to someone else. Lister watched her go, somewhat bemused by himself. She was gorgeous enough, but so was everyone else around here. They seemed to breed for sexual attractiveness, which, when he thought about it, made a whole lot of sense, really.

He turned to the woman that had been standing next to her; a golden-skinned beauty with long, dark brown rasta plaits eerily like his own. Her dark green eyes sparkled with some private joke as she dangled a cluster of what looked like pink grapes, but smelled like honey, in front of his face. Lister, fascinated with the way her breasts seemed to sway in such perfect synchrony above that practically-not-there pleated grass skirt, decided to show off with a move that had the girls running after him begging for a quickie 'round the back when he did it in pubs back on Earth. Sticking his tongue out slowly, he jiggled one of the orbs free of the rest, and, with practiced ease, rolled it into his open mouth where he crushed it meaningfully between his teeth. This did not, however, have entirely the intended effect. For one, the woman's eyes didn't widen in lusty surprise, nor did her lips quiver when he finally swallowed the pulp down slowly. Instead, she winked, and promptly extended her own, long, rosy-pink muscular organ, easily a match to his own, and repeated the trick perfectly. Lister felt his _other_ pink muscular organ swell in appreciation.

"You really are like us," golden-skin asserted happily. "You do look very common."

"Er," said Lister, uncertain to which degree this was a compliment or not. "s'pose I am."

"I am Lena. I offer myself freely." She did that thing with her breasts again, and Lister swallowed.

"Do you, now?"

She nodded. "Yes." With a hand that looked like a smaller version of his own, Lena plucked one of the fresh leaves interwoven with the dried in the garland he wore, and chewed it thoughtfully. This would explain the green-stained teeth he'd seen on some of the older folks, Lister thought. He hoped this lady didn't make a habit of chewing rather than smoking; it would be a shame to mar that face with imperfection. "And you and the Watcher," she continued, having spat out a gooey glob of mashed chlorophyll, "do you share?"

"Share?" We used to share a bunk, Lister thought. Not anymore though. Why was that, come to think of it? He tore a dried leaf off for himself, and rolled it as they'd shown him, lighting it with one of the torches that were stuck everywhere, and inhaled deeply. It wasn't like a cigarette at all, but smoking that leaf made him stop missing them. The taste was sweet and tangy, with a hint of pine. It reminded him a little bit of Christmas, and how long it was since they'd celebrated that properly? It made you do that, this weed - think. Remember. Made you relax, too.

Lena smiled, and leaned in closer, inhaling the smoke from his roll. "Yes. Do you keep to yourself, or do you share?"

Lister snorted, getting the implication, finally. People had been asking him variations of it all night, all with the same come-hither in their eyes. Made sense now, didn't it? "Nah," he grinned with all his teeth, "we're not like that, me and him."

"Not like what?" Lena reached for the roll, and he handed it to her, urging her to sit. As she nodded curtly, they both did, crossing their legs on the warm, feet-flattened dirt of the village commons.

"Not," Lister tasted the word, "lovers."

"Oh," Lena said, simply, as though this was just as natural an explanation as any. And it was, so why did Lister feel the need to elaborate?

"We're just..." Friends? No, not by a long shot. Mates? Chums? Some other reasonably ambiguous form of masculine bond? Teammates? Well, yes, but... he gave up, shrugging.

"He loves you, though," Lena said matter-of-factly, handing him back the roll.

Lister failed to take it. He must have failed in his hearing too, he thought, shaking his head vigorously, until it almost hurt.

Lena laughed. "What?"

"Loves me? You saying he loves me? Why the smeg..." It was too absurd, but she must have gotten the idea from somewhere. Lister didn't even want to think about it, but those goited leaves were _making_ him think about it.

"He has been watching over you since the beginning. He is the Watcher. He seeded us. We come from you," she pointed at him, as though patiently explaining something to an obstinate child, "but he seeded us and gave us our purpose." She smiled, blowing an expert smoke-ring. "And he loves you."

Stupid swutting leaf, making him dwell on this, making his mind go to all sorts of places he really hoped he had forgotten. Drunken revelations on planet-leave, Selby rubbing his face in it; seeing red... it had not been his proudest moment. "He doesn't love me," Lister grumbled. "He hates my guts. Listen," he hastened, as Lena squinted at him, not understanding, "you don't know what he was like. He has no soul. No soul at all, man. I dunno what he's been doing 'round here, but back where we came from, he was a right smeghead."

Lena's eyes widened along with her smile. "You know his true name!"

With a sigh, Lister grabbed the roll back from her. This was getting them nowhere, and all this drink and smoke was making him right horny. Naked women everywhere, throwing themselves at him - even now, as he was chatting to Lena, clearly in the middle of something. Half of them had turned to ask her when he'd declined, come to that. He took a long, final pull on the roll, and threw it away, hoping it didn't hit anyone in the unmentionables. There were half a dozen people copulating around them, so the risk was rather substantial. There was no cry of pain, and he relaxed, leaning closer towards Lena's offered lips. Her tongue was sticking out the way girls said his did, when he got too excited. That was weird, but he was too relaxed by the leaf-smoke to care. Still, as the tip of her tongue touched his teeth, there was... something.

The tongue-tip disappeared as Lena drew back. "What?" she said again, impatient this time. What indeed, Lister thought. Here he was, no sex for several ice-ages, and when it was finally offered by the bucketload, he was turning it down.

"Gotta..." he mumbled, getting to his feet, "gotta get..." Too much. The bloody swutting leaf was making him think too much. He swatted at his head as he almost fell backwards, tripping over an undulating couple. "Sorry," he snapped, before three or four pairs of hands grabbed a hold of him, and tried to drag him over into a dancing, singing, sweaty group of what must surely be teens. It took him at least an hour to get anywhere near the edge of the party, by which time he was utterly, utterly exhausted.

 

Rimmer lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Trying not to think was leaving him too tense to sleep. It was of paramount importance that he not do so, however, and so he focused intently on not thinking, in the hopes that he would soon be tired enough to fall asleep anyway. He could not breathe. At least he knew he would be spared the presence of any of the villagers chanting at him tonight. From the sounds of the village below, they were having one hell of a bender. It was only natural, after all, to celebrate the return of who they all thought was the Sleeper...

Mental slap. Don't think.

Lister sniffed at the leaves in the opening with a shudder. No more of that for him tonight. The sodding stuff was _everywhere_. He was far too drunk to manage a proper whisper, but he tried nonetheless. The result sounded something like a wheezing hamster. "Rimmeeeerrr..." Heating no reply, he tiptoed in.

Rimmer shivered. Smegging hell, the heartless blighter was back again. What could he possibly do to get the goit to just smegging leave him alone? "It was... funny." His voice was as flat as Carol McCauley's chest. "Really. Very. Ha ha."

Rimmer still didn't seem to be making any sense. Maybe he'd gotten too wasted, Lister worried. No, he was just barely nicely drunk. Didn't even have trouble walking. As if to demonstrate, he sauntered over to the bed and knelt down next to it. "Hey, man. Feeling better?"

Better? How could he feel better when the smegger wouldn't leave him alone? "Don't you have any heart?" Rimmer was disgusted to hear tears in his voice. But, really, what did it matter? Everyone was gone, his parents, his brothers, his superiors, sodding Lister, Cat and Kryten. The clones were scant enough reason for decorum; they did not care for it, and he did not care for them. "I smegging... miss him."

Well, he clearly wasn't better. If anything, this was worse. "Wha?" Lister asked, worried. Rimmer didn't _cry_. He whined and pitied himself, but mostly he just snarked. Lister didn't know what to do with _tears_. "Who?" Kryten?" Certainly not Cat!

"Your fecking goddam Sleeper." Rimmer felt strangely petulant. "He was _my_ Lister before he was _your_ Sleeper." Some goddam myth. They had no right to him.

"Oh? They was calling me that. Saying how you brought me here years and years ago. Good of ye, that." None of them had been able to agree on exactly what had happened, though; every story he'd been told had been more elaborate than the previous one.

Any point at which this jape could potentially have been funny was so far gone you'd need a team of Sherpas to find it. What was wrong with this jerkoff? Was he going to have to die in some unnecessarily nasty way at Rimmer's hands to _understand_ that? Rimmer shook his head, feeling tears spilling out.

He couldn't _deal_ with the tears, dammit! "Oh, eh..." he said, softly, wishing that stupid weed would help him now that he really _needed_ to think. "Don... Don cry..."

"Look," Rimmer took a deep breath. He would explain it just once more, very clearly. If that did not work, he would take the chair and threaten to set about the clone with it until he Got It. They were pacifists - he shouldn't put up much resistance.

"What? What is it?"

"I just don't think it's funny, OK?"

"What's not funny?" It felt like the set-up for the punch-line of a joke, but Rimmer had just _said_ it wasn't funny. Lister's head was beginning to hurt.

"Your joke. Pretending to be him. Laugh for you, maybe." Brainless git.

"Him who?"

"Sleeper. He's just a story to you, I know. But he's a smegging person to me."

Lister scratched his head. "They was calling me that," he said again. And Rimmer had been the Watcher to them. The Sleeper and the Watcher?

Now was the time to shake the chair around and bellow, maybe whack the faux Lister with a few times. But Rimmer felt enervated. He sighed and turned to the wall.

Yeah, turn away, Lister thought, that'll help communication. Do wonders for me understanding what the smeg is going on, that will. Not that talking to Rimmer wasn't always like talking to a wall. Like this one; all dull brownish grey and boring, unspeaking, littered with... Lister's mental gears made a rather disturbing noise as they ground against one another. A section of the wall was covered in tiny, copperplate marks, all exactly aligned and the same size. His eyes widened. There had to be. Oh god... hundreds. And knowing Rimmer, knowing how his mind worked, those wouldn't be days... "Smegging hell..." he said, quietly. "Were you here... You've been here, all this time?"

"Of course." The voice sounded like it was coming from a bad synthesizer.

"Watching me? They call you the Watcher, ya know." The Watcher and the Sleeper. Stasis. Hundreds of smegging years, just _waiting_.

"I know."

"'Cause you was watching me," Lister said, as though repeating the fact would make it easier to understand.

"I was watching _Lister_." Some acid had seeped into his voice.

"Yeah, man," Lister said, patiently, "me."

Rimmer shook his head. "Lister's dead. He's not sleeping. I saw the readings."

"Well, I'm not sleeping, but I'm not dead either." He could damn well use some sleep, though.

"No. Because you're not smegging him, you arsehole."

They'd been over that, and it was getting old. Thankfully, selectively ignoring Rimmer was something Lister had become very good at over the years. "Nifty place you have here," he said, pretending that they had an amicable little conversation going. "Bit squalid, but it beats Starbug any day."

Rimmer sat up in bed abruptly. He felt glacial. "How did you..." Lister met his gaze, looking straight into his eyes calmly. Ship's complement, Rimmer thought, desperately. How he got the names. But no, those would be labeled Red Dwarf. It was a nicked pod, so Starbug was not written anywhere on it. Rimmer cast about desperately for something in that pod, anything, that said Starbug, and drew a perfect blank. "I never told _any_ of you goits..." he gasped.

"Told what?"

"That name."

Knowing that he wouldn't have been so relaxed if it hadn't been for the interesting comestibles he'd just ingested, Lister gave a mellow, happy smile. "What, man? What is it?"

Rimmer frowned. "Not possible."

Lister scratched his head again, yawning as he watched Rimmer stare. "You all right again, then?"

Someone had whisked away the box and put another one in its place, after Rimmer had spent so much time trying to fit the pieces together into the picture on the previous one. "I... Not possible. You were dead!"

"You keep saying."

"It's true. I saw the readings!"

"Yeah?"

"Yes. Dead as rap."

Lister cast about the room lazily, knocking the bed curiously, poking at the sheet. Rimmer shifted to the foot of the bed, watching the movements and mannerisms that were somehow subtly different from anything the clones did. His movements were utterly, inexplicably, unarguably _Lister_. Finally, he looked up and smiled. A smile of which the others Rimmer had seen throughout the decades and centuries were only pale copies. "I'm not dead. You gonna believe me now?"

Rimmer leaned forward, grabbing Lister's jacket, and pulled it away from Lister's torso. He yanked at the jumpsuit and long johns underneath. He paid no attention to Lister's startled, "Whoa, eh, eh!" or his attempts to fend Rimmer's hands away. He stuck his hand underneath the long johns, feeling over the spot on Lister's chest where a gaping hole had been. He had _seen_ it. Felt the raw edges when he carried Lister to the pod. But as he patted all over that general area, he could not feel so much as a scab or a scar. Gone, like it had never happened. "I don't understand," Rimmer sighed.

Lister gasped and hiccoughed as his chest was patted. He was in the sort of mellow state of intoxication where any touch, much less one as intimate and intense as this one, tickled his libido. And the words "libido" and "Rimmer" were not ones he particularly wanted to be connected in his mind, thank you very much. "What are you _doing_ , man?" He tore a flick of his overalls from Rimmer's unresisting hand, and shuddered, mentally shouting at his thoughts to shut up.

"I saw you. Your chest was half blasted away." Rimmer shook his head and pulled his hands back. " _After_ I destroyed the time-drive."

Deciding that the jacket was better off than on anyway, Lister slid it off his shoulders, adjusting his jumpsuit and long johns. He should feel more shaken than he did, he thought. The leaves again? He'd licked quite a few alcoholic girls, too. He frankly never wanted to go back to glasses again. Only way to drink! "Sounds bad."

"After!" Rimmer sighed. The paradox had not resolved after he had destroyed their destiny line, and their future selves were gone. What could explain this? "I thought everything would go back to... before our other selves if I destroyed the time drive. It didn't. I had to abandon ship. Starbug was about to come apart." He felt a desperate need to explain himself.

Though miracle-workers when it came to food and drink, the villagers clearly hadn't quite mastered the art of air-conditioning, Lister realized. No wonder most of them ran around naked; the hut was hot as hell. Or maybe it was just an oven because Rimmer had built this himself, he thought, taking off the top of his jumpsuit and tying it around his waist. _He_ didn't feel the heat, or he'd be half-naked too. "So," Lister said, wondering why the thought of Rimmer's state of clothing was occupying his mind more than this rather important fact, "I died?"

"Yes."

Lister frowned. "But that's impossible!"

Rimmer leaned back, putting his right elbow in his left hand, touching his right forefinger to his lips. A solid day's worth of sarcasm dripped out of his voice. "Really. Why didn't _I_ think of that? Why," he raised his eyebrows in mock shock, "yes, it _is_ impossible!"

So that was what he'd been going on about. No wonder Lister had thought him space-crazy. Rimmer had probably felt crazy, too. Still, no harm done, yeah? "Oh, well. I'm alive now, yeah? That's all that matters." He curled his lips into a smile.

All that matters. Rimmer sneered. Modesty suits you, Listy, he thought. "You're alive - and we're stuck in smegging free-love hippieville."

You would think that, wouldn't you, Lister thought, grinning. No sense of fun, you have. "Yeah, stuck in a paradise with women running around without their kit on! Have you _seen_ them?"

Rimmer twisted his lip even farther. Now that he knew this was Lister, he had to admit surprise that the man had returned so soon. He must have been done _very_ quickly. He gave Lister a look of disgust. "Yes, I _have_."

"Aw, smeg, who am I kidding!" Lister chuckled. "Ye've been here fer too long and a half. Done most of them, I expect." He gave Rimmer a knowing grin. The hologram might not exactly be Casanova, but he wasn't a eunuch in _this_ lifetime. And how could you avoid those girls? They were on you like flies if they wanted you, which most of them seemed to. And Lister knew that, while obviously charming and handsome and a legendary sex-god, he wasn't always to every girl's tastes. They did seem to love difference, and what was more different from them than Rimmer? Something about that logic prodded the back of his leaf-aided thoughts, but he prodded back, annoyed. Whatever it was, he wasn't ready to be fully conscious of it yet. He didn't know what it was, but he knew that much.

Was he truly implying that Rimmer would have rutted his way through the years with those hussies? "Perish the thought."

"Wha? You don't go in for that, eh?" Lister asked, in a reasonably laddish tone of voice, not knowing exactly what he was implying, and slightly worried about that.

Rimmer waved his hand around. "They have sex with _everyone_!"

"Yeah, I know - it's _brilliant_!" Lister enthused. "And they're my clones, ya say?"

Rimmer shook his head and crossed his arms. "Yes, can't you tell? Goits."

"Smegging hell..." Lister said, as the full realization of this hit him. The whole time he'd been there, he'd never seen an unhappy face. No, strike that, there had been a couple, but they'd been deep in conversation with at least one other person, who was trying to cheer them up. Everyone was included in the party; the old folks were encouraged to drink and make as big fools of themselves as the young ones, and everyone had shared what there was of food and drink, and of that there was plenty! These folks made dishes that would make your palate curl up and whimper in ecstasy, and drinks that could numb you from a mile away. They drank and they smoked, and they feasted, but they never got violent or surly. There were no drunken fights; only slow, happy, lazy lovemaking. This, _all_ this, had come from _him_. "I'm proud of 'em."

Rimmer flopped back onto the bed. For feck's sake. Did he actually think, at some point in the distant past, that having Lister back would be any _better_? The man was of a one with all of those villagers, after all.

"Ya did good, Arn, me man," Lister beamed. "Ya did real good." Good for Rimmer, too; he'd finally gotten something right. You could probably ship these people in to any major conflict area, and in a week or so, there'd be peace. A race of peaceful, loving souls, raised by Rimmer? Give the man a medal.

Rimmer covered his eyes with his hand. It was just the smegging cherry on top that Lister wished to bestow his _blessing_ for this non-stop open-air hippie folk festival Rimmer had inadvertently created. "Kill me..." he groaned.

Lister laughed wildly. "Hell, no; I'd kiss ya if I didn't think ye'd deck me for it." Where had that come from? Well, he was happy, wasn't he?

"There's a pack of women with no kit on out there who would _just love_ that," Rimmer said through his hand, pointedly.

Yes, there was, wasn't there? And Lister had left - no - _fled_ the scene. Running away from naked women offering their bodies to him to go hang out with his smeghead bunkmate? "Yeah... they... er... I gathered." No, he didn't. He didn't want to wrap his head around what this was about. If it made sense, it couldn't be any sort of good kind of sense.

"And you're done already?" Rimmer asked, acidly.

Lister gave an awkward shrug. "You know..." he trailed off as he realized that Rimmer did not know. Why should he - Lister didn't! "I s'pose I'm... tired... and that." He was wide awake.

Rimmer removed his hand and raised his eyebrow. "Then go to sleep. They," he jerked a thumb in the direction of the village, "all snore too, you know. They won't mind a bit."

That was worth another grin and a laugh. Really, for all his dense incomprehensibility, he could be as transparent, sometimes, as that fiery liquor they'd been bathing those girls in. "And how would you know, eh?"

"I can hear them from up here," Rimmer groused. He could. When the wind was right, a faint night-time chorus of liquid snorts and wheezes would drift into the hut. At least it was bearable from this distance.

"Aaaawww, come oooon... you've done a few of 'em. Admit it! Dead keen on you, they are."

Rimmer frowned. One day ago. One smegging day ago, and he could have truthfully and proudly declared to Lister, with scorn in his voice, that he had not so much as put a finger on any one of those tarts. He considered lying, but the time for lying believably came and went as he dithered. "I... one."

"Eh?"

Rimmer felt a need to defend himself. "I was drunk. She looked..." he snapped his mouth shut with a click.

"One?" Lister was incredulous. "One...." he frowned. "Just one? One every year?"

" _Just_ one?"

"Week?"

"One! One too many."

An unfamiliar sense of protectiveness surged through Lister. "What, they not good enough for ya?"

Of course they weren't smegging good enough for Arnie J.! "No ambition! No... sense of decency!"

Lister sniggered.

"What?" Rimmer asked, testily.

"Wha, in bed?"

Rimmer sighed. "That's all you think about, isn't it."

Really, really warm in here, Lister thought as he absent-mindedly started shrugging out of the top of his long johns. "Nah." He tied the top around his waist, over the jumpsuit. He had no idea why he hadn't thought to do this while he was down _there_ , where the interesting people were.

"Shocked," Rimmer drawled.

Maybe it was Rimmer, Lister thought, lying there in enough cloth to a family of pygmies warm in a blizzard. "Smeg, it's hot in here! How can you stand it with all them clothes on?"

Rimmer looked down at his kit. "They're just light."

"Righ'." Lister was dubious. It seemed incredible that anyone could stand this heat and not even notice it. "Wish I could be dressed in light. This outfit is fit fer space, not the tropics."

"Take it off, burn it, run around naked. _They_ won't care."

Lister smiled and shook his head. "Not my style, guy."

"It's their style, ergo it must be yours."

"We're not all the same. We don't talk the same, for one."

"They learned to talk from me, you twonk!" He paused, shuddering. "I definitely did _not_ teach them fashion." They found his completely appropriate modesty hilarious.

Lister could easily envision the sort of language lessons Rimmer would give. At least he could point to his forehead as a reminder not to drop _that_ particular consonant. "That explains it, then." He claimed to be completely accent-less, but in reality, he sounded more Ionian than a cartful of mining-worms. Lister _had_ wondered why the villagers had sounded so nasal. The no-clothes thing though? Lister mulled it over. "No, I'm not one fer running around naked. Raised in Liverpool, me. Not much call fer that there."

"You'd get quite a few butch boyfriends if you run around starkers in Liverpool, I would think," Rimmer sneered.

Lister chuckled. "And what'd I want boyfriends for, eh?" Rimmer was all too fond of making completely ridiculous 'gay' jokes and insults, to the point where Lister had often wondered if there hadn't been trying to compensate for something. As though anyone cared, in this day and age! Well. As though anyone had cared three million years ago, to be precise. Had everyone been as repressed as him 'round Jupiter way?

Rimmer nodded outside. "They don't seem to care." Over the centuries, he realized, with a certain amount of shock, he had grown somewhat inured to it. He turned onto his side, facing Lister. Perhaps shocking _him_ with it would get Rimmer back in the proper mindset. "I saw two blokes getting it on in the middle of the village once... in _public_..."

Much as he personally preferred privacy, Lister didn't see what was so wrong about that. He fully understood why _Rimmer_ objected, though, so he did his best to annoy him by not reacting at all. Oh, Rimmer's expression was priceless! Such a stupid hang-up to have; as though sex between two men was any different from sex between any other two or three or whatever people. Who cared? Come to think of it, the voices in his head insisted, there had been times... in the clubs on Red Dwarf, on planet leave in some seedy dive - he'd meet some guy's eye, and... "Ach, well, I won't say I've never..." His eye now met Rimmer's, and he swallowed. Smeg! He was being too honest, too honest by far! Rimmer didn't need to know any of that. "Erm, never mind."

Rimmer raised an eyebrow. "Well, yes, they are _your_ clones." He turned back on his back, staring at the ceiling. Human civilization and sanity were officially gone from the universe.

Lister nodded, nervously, trying not to look at Rimmer. The git was making sense, that was the worst of it. They _were_ his clones. Stood to reason that they would be like him in every way. And so what if he found the odd man attractive; he'd just thought Rimmer silly for fretting about that, hadn't he? "Don' all look like me, though," he mumbled, hopefully, wondering why he cared.

"They like it that way."

"Least not the women." None of the girls Lister had seen had looked anything like him at all, except for the hair, and in some cases, the tongue. Ah. Wrong line of thinking, there; he was getting himself excited.

"Thank god for that." Rimmer shrugged, thinking of one woman who looked far too much like him.

"Right, with you having shagged one and all." Lister laughed, nervously. It had been a woman, hadn't it? Oh, please, god, let it have been a woman. No, hang on, why was that so important? Lister glanced over at Rimmer, but he was just staring fixedly at the ceiling.

After a few minutes of this, one of the most factually accurate things Rimmer had said in centuries passed his lips. "I don't understand any of this." He closed his eyes.

Lister made a non-committal motion that wasn't quite a shrug. "What's to understand? We're here."

Rimmer did not open his eyes. He felt very, very tired; physically, yes, but emotionally, as well. "Yes. I'm stuck here with you and your sodding duplicates."

His head was really heavy, Lister decided. Too heavy to be balancing on top of his neck like that. He grasped the edge of the bed, folding his arms over one another, leaning his head on top of them. It was nice that. Really nice. The thought of shuffling down to the village again now, stumbling his way, stepping over gyrating couples and threesomes was looking less and less appealing. Oh, what could it hurt? He should just ask. "Eh, man. D'ye mind... I don't much fancy sleeping down there tonight."

"Why on Earth not? They don't bite... unless it gets you off," Rimmer snapped.

You _have_ been watching them close, haven't you, Lister thought, raising an eyebrow. "I don't want to know. But they're... too..." his voice was uncomfortable. "Like me. 'S eerie." Too like him, and too good at making him _think_ , with leaves and drink and singing about love, and making him all relaxed and mellow.

"Now imagine three hundred sodding years with them."

Lister raised his head and looked at Rimmer fully. "Yeah." For Rimmer? It must have been hell. But he'd done it. He'd went through years - centuries - of hell... for Lister. "You've... I can't..." He smiled. What could you say? "Thank you." Silly; like it was a birthday card, or a coupon for half-price off baked beans.

"Yes, out of my _copious_ options..." Did Lister really think he would have done this if he had been able to think of a single alternate option?

Lister gave a crooked smile. "Yeah. Well. Anyway, would ya mind me sleeping here tonight?"

Rimmer frowned. Well, wasn't that why he had wanted Lister back, after all? Company, to keep him from going smegging insane? Not that Lister was off to a very good start. "The floor is dirt. But have at it."

"I'll take what you've got!" Lister said, so relieved that he didn't catch the double meaning of his words. He watched Rimmer's other eyebrow slowly rise to meet the first. "Erm... So to..." It was an effort to make his voice appear natural, so it must not be convincingly so. He hadn't meant for it to come out like that! What was wrong with him? He usually thrived on innuendo, but of his own volition. Not through some kind of weird Freudian slips. "So, erm, sleeping, yeah."

Rimmer shuffled himself around so he was lying in a halfway good sleeping position. He crossed his hands surreptitiously over his groin. All of this talk of sex and the naked tarts outside had given him the beginnings of an erection, and he was damned if he was going to explain _that_ one to Lister. "I don't have any blankets. Enjoy."

Blankets were the last thing on Lister's mind right now. He lay down on floor, curling up. "Don' mind." The hut grew quiet. It was a nice, friendly sort of quiet, though; one he hadn't felt since back on Red Dwarf, when they'd had one of those rare nights where the fights had been almost friendly, and they'd said good night to one another, quite amicably, laying there in the darkness. Lister shifted, thoughts swirling in his head. "Hey..."

Rimmer sighed. Despite his exhaustion, he was finding it difficult to fall asleep. "What?"

"What ya said... about missing me. Was that true, and all? 'Cause the villagers..." Lister laughed, nervously.

"Those clones of yours will drive the sanest of men to the brink," Rimmer snapped. Missing Lister. He has said he did, hadn't he, to that sodding clone he had sex with? Of all the clones to sleep with in a drunken moment of stupidity, he had to choose the one who looked the most like Lister, so sex was now entangled with _that_ face, in his mind. His ill-timed erection was not going away.

"They say you love me."

"They're smegging nutters." Rimmer said, quickly.

"Right, right." As am I, Lister thought. It _was_ nuts, bringing this up. It couldn't be just the weed; maybe _he'd_ been the one whose brain had gotten messed up in the crash?

"They tell stories, and get drunk, and build them up, and up..."

"Just... we didn't bunk back on Starbug, and I... well..." Lister looked up towards the bed, "I missed you, man." He missed all of this; the jibing, the jokes; even the flat-out insults. He missed, he realized, just being around Rimmer out of _choice_ ; not just because they were in the same cockpit out of necessity.

Rimmer had a sudden uncomfortable thought, and shifted on his bed. "Hell. They probably think you came back up here to have sex with me."

Yes, they would. After all, that's what Lister would have assumed. He laughed quietly. "So what?"

"You'll never hear the end of it." _And neither will I_.

No, they probably wouldn't, but it was funny that, right? Lister kept laughing. "Ah, they're all over me with stories anyway."

"They'll make up sodding hymns about it. Sing them to you outside of your hut at night."

"Me and you shagging wouldn't be the worst of it." His own words surprised Lister, but they were, he knew, the truth. After all, Rimmer wasn't bad- _looking_. If he could just shut up for a hour or so, they could have great time... No, hang on, what was he thinking _now_? He twisted his tongue around in his mouth, trying to see if there were any residue from those leaves still in there; the way they were messing with his mind, he sure thought so.

"What _would_ be the worst of it, then?" Selby had once drunkenly joked about Lister being a bit more than matey with his poncy bunkmate, and Lister had beat him until he got a night in the medi-bay, and Lister got docked a month's pay. Rimmer had heard about it sixth-hand, of course, but he didn't doubt a word. Rimmer had truly screwed up his post-death commission; Lister had gone quite mad.

"Loads of things. I mean, it's not like I'd never..." He trailed off, and listened to the noises of the small woodland creatures, his teeth clamping down hard on his tongue. If only there was something similar he could do to his brain. The larger creatures in the hut were completely silent. "Well, just, there are worse things," he concluded, lamely.

Either mad, or had consumed a bit too much of that weed. "Are you really sure you should sleep here tonight?"

Lister looked up at the bed, Rimmer's silhouette in the dim moonlight. Don't think. Just... don't think. "Unless you don't want me to..." The figure shrugged. Lister giggled, despite himself. "Oh, man. Those songs'd be something."

"They've made the like for other... blokes... who got a little too much into each other." Rimmer shook his head. "Obscene. Rather... detailed." He wrinkled his nose.

Lister giggled. "Oh, eh, what kind of details?"

"They offer... certain practical tips. In the smegging song!" It was like a joke that a five-year-old would find funny. "One verse was devoted to common household substances that can be used for lubricant." Rimmer had never been in the least bit curious about the mechanisms of sex between two men, but now, he had become a reluctant expert - in the theory, at least - thanks to those sodding songs.

"Yeah, they did seem to have a lot of oils." Several of them had tried to pour them on him, and some of them had quite happily poured them on one another.

"Multi-purpose. Cooking, scenting, and fucking. They keep trying to give me some."

It was too funny; Lister could not help it. He giggled again, this time with a snort, clutching at his sides. Laughter was liberating after all this tension.

Rimmer sniffed at the implication. "Offerings," he clarified.

"They're just being friendly," Lister said, through his laughter. "So what, you got some of them oils, then?"

"No, I told them to smeg off with them! I don't cook, and I smell just fine, thank you!"

"Hah, yeah, you would. And ya just bonked the one _lady_." He emphasized the word carefully, wondering if Rimmer would notice.

That statement brought Rimmer back to thoughts of the lady in question - if that word were not demonstrably a misnomer - which brought him back to her eerie resemblance to Lister, which, combined with the discussion of lubricants, made him very annoyed that he still had a raging hard-on. He listened to Lister shift on the floor. Yes, that's all he knew of her. Who she looked like. "I don't even know her name. Doesn't mean anything to them. Come in, how are you, sex, leave."

"Wha, did she not tell you?" For whatever reason, Rimmer seemed upset by this. Perhaps he had liked her, or him, as they case might well be. There was just something in Rimmer's oddly quiet voice that invited comfort. "Eh, now... I'm sure she would've told you if ye'd asked."

"Oh, so it's _my_ fault."

"No, no," Lister said, plaintively. Why did the smegger have to misunderstand every single word he said? "Just, y'know, she probably just liked ya so much."

Rimmer tried to parse that sentence, and drew a blank. "What?"

"Couldn't..." Lister paused, looking at that familiar face, that familiar body, as something finally allowed itself to click. "Help herself." He shifted on the floor again, the floodgates of feeling now irrevocably open, and sighed. Aw hell. He was in deep smeg indeed.

Rimmer snorted. "I admit that I often like to believe otherwise, but I have never really had a problem with women _throwing_ themselves at me." It tended to be in the other direction, no matter how witty he made his comments about the decline of the quality of Hammond organ music in the early 22nd century, and his theories as to why this could be linked to variations in the trading value of wheat on the European commodities market.

"But she came to you, did she?" Lister asked, quietly. "Must have done so fer a reason." The thing was, he was fairly sure now he knew what that reason would be. He felt it, too.

"She wanted to know aaaaall about the sodding Sleeper. You."

Lister shook his head. "They're crazy about that stuff. Me and you."

"It's a cutsie little romantic tale to lull their kiddies to sleep with." And the adults, as well, who were on a comparable mental level to the kiddies.

"They think we're gonna live together now, ya know. Adopt kids, raise 'em. They were going on and on about it."

Rimmer almost choked. His voice soared into high-pitched incredulity. "Adopt sodding _kids_?"

He was right to scoff, Lister thought. The two of them? What a laugh, yeah? "Yeah. I like kids, me."

He would. "Good. You should marry one of those bare-breasted birds and have a litter." Rimmer paused. "Wait, they don't marry." He yet to see a single ceremony that could be vaguely construed as a wedding. Even the smegging GELFs married!

"They don't, eh?" Lister had seen family groups of many different sizes, or at least what seemed very much like it.

"Free smegging love, I told you."

That didn't sound quite right. Lister frowned. "Saw quite a few couples keepin' just to themselves. And triads and that."

"Oh, keeping it to themselves for the one evening you were there? That's self-control!" Rimmer flopped around into what might have been a more comfortable position, but wasn't.

Struck by a sudden thought, Lister raised himself onto his elbow, facing Rimmer. "Look, they're part of _me_ , man. Ya think I would cheat?"

Rimmer frowned. Of course not. Lister had been head-over-heels for smegging Kochanski far past the time she had even had a thought for him. Smegging ludicrous. But there was a distinction to be made. "It's not cheating. It's just having sex with everyone. They don't lie about it, from what I can tell."

That was one way of looking at it, of course. Lister had given up on resisting thought, and so he thought about this, long and hard. Hard, indeed. Finally allowed to run free and unrestricted, the what he now knew to be Rimmer-induced tingling down his spine had complete access to his conscious mind, and basked in newfound attention. Yes, hard. Had he ever been this hard?

Rimmer sighed. "Look, why don't you go find one of those nice birds and get a start on bundle of babies, since you can't get this topic off of your mind." He looked down at Lister's below-waist mind.

Lister looked up and met Rimmer's eyes. Could he see the erection, underneath the jumpsuit and long johns tied off at his waist? Impossible. But maybe... The idea of Rimmer looking at his cock didn't exactly help matters. He swallowed. "I..." Words failed to come to mind. "Don't want... that."

"You just _said_ you wanted it!"

"Yeah, kids and that... some day. Not smegging right now." Right now, he was shocked to find, he wanted to stick his tongue so far down Rimmer's throat he'd beg for mercy, then maybe get down on his knees in front of him...

"That's good, because I could not sleep with you boinking some tart on my floor," Rimmer grumbled.

Sex - woman? Woman-sex? Floor... Sex on the floor? There were too many words and not enough doing, Lister felt. "Wh... Y..." He fretted and bit his lip. What a fine mess he'd gotten himself into here, eh?

Rimmer closed his eyes, determined to end the conversation and smegging _sleep_.

Lister looked towards the bed. Stupid erection. Stupid weed for making him realize why he had it. Stupid Rimmer for being attractive. Stupid him for not barging over there and licking every inch of the bastard's body. He banged his head against the dirt floor, gritting his teeth.

"Lister!" Rimmer said, exasperated. "Are you sodding mad?"

"Yeah..." Lister mumbled. "What?" He looked, and saw Rimmer waving from Lister's head to the floor. "Oh. Just... couldn't sleep." He tried not to look at his erection. It got excited when people paid attention to it.

"And you were hoping to knock yourself unconscious? Brilliant..."

Lister sighed. "Sorry if I woke ya." Sorry I'm a horny, cowardly idiot. Sorry you're a smeghead. Sorry, sorry, sorry...

"I can't sleep." Not with you gabbing and putting strange thoughts in my head, Rimmer added silently. He stood up and walked to the chair. "You take the sodding bed."

"Yeah?" Lister asked, surprised. He sat up. Don't ask questions, he thought; not of him, not of yourself. Just do this. He looked at his clothes, dirty from the floor. "I should, er..." he stood and started taking his jumpsuit off of his legs, stepping out of his boots, ending up in just his long johns, the lower half of which was clean. The top, however, was badly soiled from the dirt floor. He looked at them. "Smeg..." Not that it mattered all that much, in this heat, he thought, stepping out of them. He might well have slept naked if it hadn't been for Rimmer being in the same room, staring so oddly at him like that; he wasn't sure he'd be entirely... A grim realization struck him as he suddenly realized _why_ Rimmer was staring. He wasn't wearing anything underneath. Nicely subtle, Dave. Good one. Real charmer you are. What's next, waving your bits in his face? He turned, quickly, trying to pretend he hadn't noticed, but his delay had been too long for that to seem even remotely credible.

With all of the talk of naked women and sex, Rimmer was not in the least bit surprised to see that Lister had an erection. He had probably worn out the birds and come by before he was quite done. "Would you like me to _leave_ while you take care of that?" he snapped, standing.

"Don' be..."

Lister tried to interject, but Rimmer was muttering to himself. "Not even one smegging day re-alive, and..." Slightly offended, Lister raised his voice over Rimmer's mumbling, "I wouldn't..."

"Oh, yes, you would," Rimmer snapped. Lister would beat off whenever the mood struck him, including at 2am on the morning of one of Rimmer's exams, and he would not be quiet about it.

Lister blushed, grateful for the dim light. He grabbed the flimsy sheet off of the bed, folding it around himself as he clambered into bed. "I wouldn't, OK?" There was such a thing as privacy, to him. Privacy, and common courtesy. Waiting to jack off until you were alone was a matter of principle to him, and if he got the urge late at night with Rimmer in the room, he'd force himself to fall asleep and forget about it. That worked like a charm; when he woke up again, he was always completely sated. No use telling that to Rimmer, though; he'd clearly made up his mind Lister was a pervert. "You sure this is OK? Me..." he indicated the bed.

Rimmer sighed. "You don't want to sleep with the smegging horny villagers. You couldn't sleep on the floor. What now?" He sounded petulant. But hell, he _felt_ smegging petulant. All of his waiting and worry, and now it was just like having another one of those clones. Why did he think Lister would have changed anything about this situation? All that Lister had done so far that the clones didn't were two things he had never done before; he had made Rimmer distinctly edgy and distinctly erect.

"I'm fine... Just so long as yer fine..."

"Delightful, Listy."

The bed, spartan though it was, did look inviting, and Lister nodded, uncertainly. He put his head down where a pillow really out to be, but wasn't, and watched Rimmer sit back down in that stiff-backed chair with his fingers steepled, and winced. "Are you gonna sit there all night?" It couldn't possibly be comfortable.

What do you smegging care? Rimmer thought. Just go to _sleep_ already! "Perhaps."

Lister rolled his eyes. "In that thing? Ye'll ruin yer back."

Rimmer stood. "Look, if I'm making you nervous, I'll just take a short walk."

Annoyed that he should have to apologize for a friendly comment, Lister flopped back onto the mattress. "I'm just lookin' out for ya. Can't a man look out fer his mates now? Don't leave just fer that." Could they never just have a normal conversation?

When had Lister ever cared about his smegging back? "Yes, Listy, and you've been dead for a good long while. You really need a good night's sleep."

Lister sighed. He really was very tired. Not to mention horny. Great. He was on a world overflowing with topless, beautiful women, and he chose to salute the flag of Arnold Judas Rimmer instead. Good one, Listy, he snarled at himself.

"Snore away, Listy. I'll be out of listening range." Rimmer sidled out of the hut, almost tripping over the bottle of scented oil that had been pointedly placed there.

"Not... gonna..." Lister muttered, as his consciousness slowly slipped away into a snore.

 

Rimmer walked down the hill in a dignified manner until he heard the snore. He ran. He needed some place to be smegging _alone_ , to sort through what had happened that day and try to bloody well get a grip on himself. The village and its surroundings were out. The pod was tempting, and he ran into the little forest, but stopped abruptly halfway in. No, he was _not_ going to sit in the pod with the bloodstained stasis pod and the cloning equipment. He looked up, and saw that one of the nearby trees was perfect for climbing, with large, well-spaced branches. That would do. He clambered up until he came across two solid branches that V-ed away from each other in the horizontal direction. He sat between them, hooking one knee over each branch. He settled back, leaning his head against the trunk and closing his eyes. "Swut." Crazy, senseless, utterly nutters day. The clones' lunacy was contagious. He had actually come to think, over the centuries, that something magnificent and cathartic would happen if Lister were to awaken. No, he had simply gotten his old bunkmate back, as irritating as ever.

The tree started to move, as if in a wind that must have built up in the previously still night rather abruptly. Rimmer looked around nervously, concerned for the integrity of perch. But the branches that formed said perch were sturdy and still. Rimmer leaned back; the tree had oddly warm and soft bark of a pleasing, light brown color, and it was quite soothing to lie against. As were the smaller branches, blown by that oddly quiet wind, that moved over his torso, almost in a caress. Rimmer shifted. This was not helping his inexplicable horniness, at all. But now, at least, he had the privacy to do something about it. He opened his trousers, spat into his hand, and started to stroke.

The branches under his legs seemed to undulate, and Rimmer stopped stroking himself, grabbing the branches with both hands "What the smeg..."

Of course the branches were not moving. It must have been his mind. Rimmer let go and leaned back, closing his eyes and sighing. A wind he did not feel made a matching sigh in the tree. The branches that had rubbed against him shifted slightly. It made Rimmer feel queasy, but not enough so to overcome how ragingly horny that conversation with Lister had left him. He grabbed the trunk with one hand, his queasiness not helped by the oddly un-bark-like bark. It seemed almost to move under his hand - but no, that was more tricks of his mind. Rimmer settled back against it again; it certainly felt good on that score. He moved his hand to his mouth, licking it, finding the gentle movement of the tree in the wind rather soothing, now. He stroked himself, slowly, whining nasally, as the leaves rustled in concert. Some of them brushed over his face, and he sighed, still stroking. The trunk resisted his pushing against it, almost as if it were pushing back. He rubbed against it with his back as he stroked, his buttocks fitting into a slight wedge in the trunk. What an oddly conveniently shaped tree this was, he thought absently. The branches under his legs were warming as he settled into a rhythm. He pulled air in through his cavernous nostrils and out through his mouth as he reached his other hand down to stroke his balls.

The branches under his legs seemed to sway slightly, moving towards and away from one another. Rimmer was too caught up in his activities at that point to notice all that much, however, and he simply rode it, spitting on his hand again and stroking harder. His wiggling was driving his buttocks farther into the wedge, almost as if the tree were squeezing them. Rimmer had giggle at that idea, then gasped as he wiggled in farther, his buttocks receiving a solid squeeze. He moaned, loudly. His frantic movements had dislodged some smaller branches, and they came to rest on his shoulders, pressing down. Rimmer leaned into them as he pumped harder. He had never understood nature freaks until now. He opened his mouth, panting, and as the branches on his shoulders moved with his movements and scraped his cheeks, he came, rubbing against the trunk, semen spurting sluggishly over his hand. He used it as lube to stroke out the tremors. "God..." Nature was wonderful!

The tree shuddered, the branches on his shoulders flying away. Slightly further down, unbeknownst to Rimmer, sap flowed leisurely from a solid branch which seemed otherwise unharmed.

Rimmer opened his eyes as he slowly stopped his hand motions. He blew out a breath and looked around. The tree rustled its leaves as innocently as a tree could. Well, it was a bit late to be furtive, Rimmer thought, but he did not hear anything that sounded like one of the villagers running around in the undergrowth or giggling. He fastened his trousers, looking disconsolately at the dark stain on them. He slipped to the ground.

He had been tired before, but he was now utterly exhausted. He could not sleep in the pod, though, which left only... please, he thought desperately, let Lister be asleep. He tiptoed back across the grounds towards his hut, listening for snoring. He heard it - somewhat more quiet than he remembered, but it was Lister's unmistakable phlegm rearrangement. He tiptoed in.

"Srkkk..." Lister mumbled. "...Mmer..." He was clearly asleep, flopping about, pressing hard against the mattress and panting. "Mssd 'y..." he moaned.

Rimmer shuffled to the middle of the room and collapsed on the dirt floor. He was exhausted enough to sleep though that. He was exhausted enough to sleep through a nuclear explosion.

The bed moved slightly as Lister snored and moaned. Rimmer would probably have to wash that smegging sheet in the morning, but he just didn't care. He closed his eyes and started to drift off. Lister's sleep-muffled voice rang out loudly enough to drag him back. "God, Arn, yes..." His moans increased in volume, as well.

Rimmer sighed and stuck his fingers in his ears. The moans only got louder. Rimmer pulled himself up onto his elbows, and bellowed, "For smeg's sake, would you stop _snoring_!"

Lister jerked into half-wakefulness, painfully, painfully hard. " _Whu_?" Was it morning already? No, too dark.

Rimmer dropped back onto the ground with a long-suffering sigh, closing his eyes again, as Lister mumbled, "Don... stop..." in his half-sleep.

"No, you never smegging stop," Rimmer grumbled.

Just about managing to grab his cock before drifting back into oblivion, Lister started stroking himself as he snored. The snores turned into plaintive moans as his unconscious mind registered that he was getting close, oh so _close_!

Rimmer sighed. He turned onto his stomach and put his fingers in his ears, determined not to make this a vicious cycle. He was not going to go climb a smegging tree again.

Lister whimpered and bit his lip. "A...rn..." he choked as he bucked and came, quite violently. He drifted off into a deeper sleep. "Loveu..." He snored.

Rimmer put his face into the dirt, falling asleep to the lullaby that the villagers had supplied for the past several centuries.


	3. Chapter 3

Rimmer slowly became aware of a strange taste in his mouth and an odd, granular texture on his face. He opened his eyes, and whatever the granular business was, his eyes did not like it. He snapped them shut and tried to stand up. Pain shot through his arm and his back, and he fell down again, moaning.

His mind finally caught up with his consciousness. He had fallen asleep face-down on the dirt floor, with Lister sprawled across his bed, masturbating into _his_ sheet. Rimmer sighed. At a thousand and some years old, he was in no shape to sleep on hard ground. Rimmer moved very, very slowly, dragging his stiff arm downwards, raising himself up on its elbow, grabbing his screaming back with his other hand, and scuttling the short distance over to his chair. He pulled himself up and collapsed onto it with an agonized moan. He carefully and gently started to stretch out his tight, knotted muscles.

The chair was facing the bed, so Rimmer could not be spared the sight of Lister as he brought his body back to working order. Lister, sleeping the sleep of the just, highly undeserved though it was in his case. His mouth was half-open, and his left thumb was hooked in it. He had kicked the sheet off at some point during the night, so there was nothing covering his penis, which lay flaccid in his right hand. The blighter must have beat off on _my_ bed, all over _my_ sheet, Rimmer thought, irately, then fallen dead asleep the very next second. As if the situation weren't uncomfortable enough, Rimmer could not keep the conversation of the night before out of his head, and he was quite, quite horny. Then again, the last two days aside, he had not so much as masturbated in decades. It was, he reassured himself, only natural for him to be a little hung up on the subject when it was... re-introduced, so to speak.

As Rimmer worked the kinks out, rendering him capable of basic locomotion again, he stood, ready to take a good, long walk. But petulance overtook him before he reached the door. Why should _he_ leave his own smegging hut, just because Lister made him uncomfortable? He'd bloody well make Lister uncomfortable, and let _him_ piss off to find another place to stay. Rimmer sat back in his chair, staring disdainfully at the sleeping Lister. His eyes traveled back and forth between the thumb dangling out of Lister's mouth and the penis dangling out of his hand - which, taking into account that it was flaccid, was of a reasonably impressive size.

He was still staring when Lister's eyes opened, blinking, and fixed on Rimmer. The fingers that were wrapped around his cock twitched.

"Did..." Rimmer was trying to stuff condescension and sarcasm into his voice, but it was far too early in the morning for that much subtlety, and it dribbled out in a pathetic squeak. Rimmer tried again, this time with just the sarcasm. "Did you sleep... well..?"

The image of Rimmer slowly resolved onto Lister's retinas. Lister had woken up to a number of disturbing images over the years. Topping the list were the insides of Petersen's mouth, Rimmer's mum that time they'd been attacked by the Polymorph (though the fear hadn't actually registered at the time), and Kryten vacuuming his t-shirt with his groinal attachment with Lister still in it - but this? This wasn't so much disturbing as... well... His voice, he found, was gravelly. "Sleep... yeah."

"Not," Rimmer looked pointedly at the limp cock in Lister's hand, " _up_ all night?"

Lister couldn't stop staring at Rimmer. He looked... he looked like he always had done, Lister supposed, but only now did he realize that the rush of blood to his genitalia and the need to absorb Rimmer with his eyes were linked. He grabbed his cock as it was mentioned, as though he suddenly remembered that it was there, and it began to harden.

Irrepressible. Unevolved. Rimmer licked his lips, unconsciously.

Those lips being licked didn't exactly help. Lister whimpered as he tried to look away, but couldn't.

Rimmer raised his eyebrows. That was not a noise he was expecting. Sarcasm, insults, even jocularity, if Lister were in a very good mood - but a _whimper_?

"Dun..." Lister tried again. "Din't mean to disturb ya..."

"No, you don't mean to... you just do." Rimmer tried to force ire into his voice, but it came out as more of a statement of fact.

He shouldn't be lying here like this, frozen, staring, damn near wanking in Rimmer's face, but Lister didn't feel entirely like himself yet. Or rather, he felt too much like himself. It was that damn leaf; it was still in his system, making him too honest, too open, and far, far too willing to give in to desires he hadn't know he had just yesterday. Three hundred years ago. His free hand clenched the sheet, as if to steady himself. This would not end up in a good place, his rational mind insisted. Sadly, it was being overpowered by the part of him that had been repressed for far too long.

Rimmer sighed, stood, then moved over to stand next to the bed. Cover Lister with the sheet, then leave him alone for a while. He had been dead for some time, after all. Had a few things to get out of his system. But Rimmer found himself - _staring_. Unable to move his hands. "Hell," he croaked.

Something broke inside of Lister. He let go of his cock and the sheet and sat up on his knees. Rimmer was looking down at him, to all appearances, frozen in liquid delinium. Drug-induced or not, he couldn't stand this any longer. He needed Rimmer. There were no alternatives, and he'd stopped caring that there weren't.

Rimmer raised his hands slowly, uncertainly. Lister had such a look of _wanting_ on his face. But when had he ever wanted anything from Rimmer, other than for him to leave the room?

"Please..." Lister said, very quietly.

"What?" Rimmer asked, confused, staring. He was still strangely horny, and with Lister's earnest face so close, he could not even remember the conversation from the night before. Why was he so horny?

No other options. The only, only way. Lister whimpered again and grabbed Rimmer's face, pulling the hologram closer, the speck of rationality still in him keeping him from going further yet - but it was only a matter of time, he knew. And it scared him. Scared him witless.

Rimmer stared at Lister's eyes, which were now a significant part of his field of vision. He tried to speak, to say something sarcastic and mean, but he drew a complete blank. His mouth hung half-open, stupidly.

Lister repeated "Please..." in that same quiet voice, his whole body shaking. "Need you..." Like a junkie needing a fix. If Rimmer pushed him away now, he'd go to pieces. He'd go insane.

Need me? Rimmer thought, desperate. Since when does he smegging _need me_? But his horniness was only growing, and he realized its source too late. Too late to keep him from grabbing Lister under the armpits, pulling him closer, as Lister licked his own lips. Rimmer felt himself closing in on Lister with slow inevitability. No, no, smegging _no_! What was he doing? He moaned - a whiny, nasal moan. "Listy..." _Listy, please, stop this - act like yourself, insult me, get exasperated - I'm Rimmer, for smeg's sake, don't smegging kiss me_!

Lister closed his eyes. "Ri... R..." He couldn't finish.

It must be... desperation, from so long celibate, mixed with that contagious lackadaisical attitude of the clones towards sex, along with the shock of Lister becoming re-alive again. A visceral reaction. Something to get out of his system. Rimmer slid his hands down to grab Lister's buttocks, pulling up and in, kneading.

This touch, so to the point, so unambiguous, made Lister exhale with a high-pitched whimper. Oh, sweet relief - Rimmer wanted him, too!

Rimmer pressed his lips to Lister's. They were full, soft, and resilient, just like that girl-clone's. But his breath was stale lager and ship's air and nicotine, which tasted almost nothing like the smegging blessed leaf.

Kisses shouldn't be this electric, this exciting, Lister mused as his whole body sighed. He let the kiss be oddly mellow, wanting to savor it in all its oddness. Whatever he felt for Rimmer, it was far beyond lust, that much was clear.

Rimmer pulled and pushed on Lister's buttocks to rub the other man up and down against him. Mellowness was for affection. _This_ \- this was some strange, raw sexual aberration that they would both resent afterwards and never refer to.

Lister slid his tongue into Rimmer's mouth lazily, wondering if he was still asleep, and this was a dream. But no, Rimmer's tongue felt soberingly real as he caressed and fondled it with his own. It tasted no different than the many tongues he'd felt before. The _feeling_ , though - that was different indeed, and it egged him on, fueled his desire and made him slowly lose what little control he had left.

Rimmer nipped the tongue and sucked it in, feeling that it was all somehow more right - or less wrong - when Lister became frantic, tearing at Rimmer's clothes. Rimmer opened his mouth and pushed it into Lister's to the point where their teeth clicked against each other. He raised his hands to the clasps on his jacket and ripped, some of the clasps flying off of the jacket and fizzling to nothing. This felt altogether too magnificent, Rimmer thought as he ground his groin against Lister's stomach.

Lister licked the roof of Rimmer's mouth, sticking his tongue in as far as it would go, rubbing his hands under Rimmer's undershirt, needing to feel skin, and sighing when he finally did so. He sighed again when Rimmer opened his mouth wide, leaning back slightly to allow Lister greater access. Lister slid his tongue out of Rimmer's mouth and licked the outside of his lips and chin, then pulled back a little more to lick the underside of the hologram's chin, until he didn't know what he was doing, where he was, or what his name was. His name. Was someone saying his name?

"Lister," Rimmer panted. _Are you sure this is such a good idea, how much are we going to hate each other tomorrow, can you live on the same planet after this_? None of the rest made it past his lips as Lister slid his hands behind his back and breathed "Yes..." in his ear. Rimmer ran his hands over Lister's own solid, warm back.

Lister nibbled at Rimmer's neck, pressing back, hard, as Rimmer pushed into his stomach. "Smegyes," Rimmer gasped. He had read that this kind of thing happened when men were alone for too long together. The clones hardly counted, and so this might very well be completely normal, couldn't it? Lister should know, after all; he was always more of the social, matey type. Yes, this must be just a normal bloke thing. God, he was hungry. He turned to fall onto the bed on his back, pulling Lister.

He was falling, Lister noted with detachment. It didn't matter - nothing mattered. He was safe. As he fell into the nook of Rimmer's neck, he gasped one word, one name - "Arn..."

Rimmer spread his legs, pulling Lister between them, bucking against the other man, as Lister settled between Rimmer's legs, sliding his hands over Rimmer's buttocks. Rimmer tore at his trouser fastenings, then realized that, logistically, his boots would have to come first. He raised his right leg in an awkward stretch to yank off his boot, tossing it away, then his left, licking Lister's face.

"Want you... so bad." Lister moved his head with the movement of Rimmer's tongue, saturated with want.

Rimmer mumbled something that sounded affirmative, pleased that his boots were out of the way. He ripped his trousers open, licking Lister's ear. The moment his erection was free, Lister grabbed it, squeezing it hard. Rimmer had done as many things as he could think of to his cock in the name of variety over the centuries, so he did not understand why this made his spine shiver like nails were scraping over it. He threw his head back onto the bed. "Ohsmeglistysmegginghellyes," he spat.

The closest thing to his mouth was Rimmer's shoulder, so Lister licked it as he started pumping up and down. It didn't taste like much, but then again, people were always telling him he'd have no tastebuds left with the way he was smoking and drowning his food in triple-extra-hot chilies.

Rimmer gasped in time with Lister's hand motions, one leg dangling over the edge of the bed. He stroked Lister's shoulders, trying to figure out why the wet lapping at his shoulder did not feel as disgusting as he intellectually knew it to be.

"Touch me," Lister moaned. "Please..."

Rimmer frowned. He had his hands on the goit's shoulders! "I am!" What, did Lister think he had a third hand with which to tousle his hair? He didn't think he had ever had both hands on the goit... "Oh." Realization hit, and after all, if this was some kind of matey thing, there should be reciprocity, shouldn't there? Rimmer ran one hand down Lister's chest, winding his fingers in Lister's pubic hair, which was even wirier than the hair on his head.

Lister hadn't entirely held out hope that Rimmer would actually comply - when did he ever? - but the mere indication that he might made Lister's spine tingle. He bit his lip, and tried not to thrust or thrash about, though he felt he was going quietly mad with want.

Rimmer did exactly what felt good on his self-administered hand jobs; he ran his thumb over the head, spreading precome, as he stroked the underside of the shaft with his fingertips. He grabbed the nape of Lister's neck with his other hand.

Lister didn't know which felt better - the actual touch of Rimmer's hand on his cock, or the fact that he had actually done what Lister asked him to. Oh hell, there was no contest, his body insisted; though it felt clumsy and inexperienced, he had never felt such a thrill associated with fingers playing with his reproductive organ. He groaned, pumping Rimmer harder, almost without thinking.

"Gragh." Rimmer bucked into Lister's hand. He started to forget what he was doing, and stroked Lister more slowly. Lister gave a long, drawn-out moan, his own hand slowing to a stop, which did not matter in the least. Rimmer had lasted a rather long time, for him, already, and came, holding Lister's erection firmly. "Sw..." What the hell was he sputtering? Sweet? Swahili? Switzerland? His brain must have been what oozed out. He gave a wordless, drawn-out wail.

No. Oh, smeg, no. He couldn't... Lister gasped, slightly startled. He'd known Rimmer wasn't the most sexually experienced of men, but somehow that hadn't been at the forefront of his mind. He was disappointed; this was too new and exciting to end so soon!

Rimmer held Lister's erection motionlessly as he rode out his orgasm, gasping, thinking of nothing but pleasure - and rather enjoying that.

Frustrated though he was at the unmoving hand on his own cock, Lister found that Rimmer's orgasm thrilled him almost as though it had been his own. He slicked his fingers, lubricated with come, up and down... _Arn's_ cock, caressing it.

Rimmer shivered at that sensation layered on the sensation of the last of his orgasm, and bit Lister's shoulder, and Lister yelped, shuddering. The yelp brought Rimmer back to himself. Ah. That had been rather rude, hadn't it? He licked the bite.

"Yes, smeg, yes..." Hard and horny as he was, any sensation egged Lister on. And he had a thing about tongues, mouths; the intimacy of it. If only Arn would... but no, of course he wouldn't.

Taking a cue from Lister's response, Rimmer licked over to Lister's jaw, across the jaw, across his lips, and up his cheek. He tasted of sour sweat and engine grease. Lister bucked against Rimmer's unmoving hand, still caressing Arn's cock. Oh - that was rude, too, wasn't it? Damn it, Rimmer was never outright _rude_. Well, yes, he was, but always very intentionally so; he was never rude like he was now, just from not knowing what the smeg the rules of the damn game were. He started to stroke again, sighing into Lister's ear in frustration.

Close to crying with relief that it wasn't over yet, Lister gave a deep, shuddering moan. Having to finish this on his own... well, that didn't bear thinking about. He wanted this to go on forever, not least because part of him knew how he'd feel about it once the effects of that leaf wore off. If he'd had any brainpower left at all, Lister might have been surprised at the fact that Rimmer had begun to grow erect again in his steady grip. As it was, it merely registered with him, filed alongside the other sensory impressions in a mental envelope marked "smegging good".

Hand. Hand left too much exposed to the air that, in comparison, felt cool. Rimmer grabbed Lister, pulling him as tight as one could get with two hands between. He grabbed the small of Lister's back with his free hand.

Lister let go of Rimmer's cock in the pull, grabbing the back of Rimmer's neck with the hand that had been on the hologram's cock. There were tiny curls at the back of Rimmer's neck, almost like Lister's own hair, but softer. Not by much, though. It was such a random little detail, but it stayed with him. Hair. Arn's hair.

Shit. Rimmer had no handle on the rules, none at all. Why did Lister fecking assume he did? Or maybe this was all one hell of a hallucination, brought on by that strange grog. "Are you real?" he asked in a hoarsely suspicious voice.

"Yes..." Lister whispered.

Rimmer nodded, stroking Lister firmly. The skin was very soft; it actually felt rather good.

He was going to come, Lister realized, with increasing frustration. Ironic, yes, given that moments ago he'd been worried about _not_ coming at Arn's ministrations, but as it was - that quick, early release couldn't have been all that satisfying, and hadn't he always taken pride in being a generous, sensitive lover? Hadn't those people miraculously grown from his DNA based an entire culture on the values he had always stood for, including _that_ one? He felt the stirrings of an odd sort of responsibility inside, and resolutely began trying to remove Rimmer's hand.

Rimmer let go at Lister's urging. _Now_ what? Lister pressed his own erection against Rimmer's, and the sensation was immediately and viscerally joyful. "Dave," Rimmer spat.

Lister sighed a happy half-laugh. "Yes. Arn..."

The warm, slick movement of bodies against each other was mind-numbingly pleasant. At a loss for what to do, Rimmer slid his hands away to knead Lister's buttocks.

Lister forced himself to move slowly up and down. Although, as they settled into a rhythm, he found it took less and less effort to restrain himself from going faster. He _wanted_ to do this right, make it good and long-lasting for both of them. That in itself was a delight, he'd always found. The fact that he was doing this with Rimmer... well, he'd worry about that later.

Ah, perhaps this was just a variation. Something Lister had hashed out at some point with _his_ mates. Or maybe it was written somewhere. Not in the Space Corps Directives, for damn sure. 109456 dealt with hand jobs between technicians, and 92765 with oral service, but he could remember no reference to rubbing erections. Which was fine with Rimmer - where would they get the feathers? He moaned, laying his head back, kneading Lister's buttocks with deep, slow strokes.

Hearing the wail escaping Arn when he licked his chest, a rather tempting idea formed in Lister's mind. Hesitating only for a moment, he moved farther down licking his way towards Rimmer's stomach. He felt Rimmer let go of his buttocks, grabbing his hair instead, and grabbed his buttocks in turn, kneading them. He smiled as he trailed his tongue further down - this was his territory.

Rimmer bucked into and out of those hands. He had a very good idea of where this was leading, but was not sure he wanted to think about it.

Down towards Arn's stomach Lister's tongue slithered, taking an exactly calculated amount of time to move down into his crotch, and quickly up the side of his erection. Lister had never done this to a man before, but having had it done to himself, he felt he had a fair idea. Besides, bodies were bodies. And he was good at finding out how they worked.

Rimmer whimpered, twisting his fingers in Lister's hair. Although he had read about it, and seen far too many films, he had not actually been orally serviced at any point in the past, and the experience was like nothing else - not even conventional sex, which, for all of the delightful warm wetness of it, did not feature a prehensile muscle. Lister licked up and down a few times. Rimmer's whimpering turned into more of a gaaaah-like noise as his mouth fell open.

Lister took the head between his lips, moving down just a little. He licked what of the head was inside his mouth, grabbing Rimmer's buttocks to keep him steady.

Conscious thought had taken a breather, and Rimmer continued to gaahh, winding his fingers in Lister's hair.

Enjoying himself far too much, Lister slid his lips all of the way down, slowly, pressing his own erection, all but forgotten except as a dull, annoying ache keeping him from what was really important, against Rimmer's leg.

Rimmer writhed as well as he could. One hand found its way down to Lister's cheek, stroking it.

Lister moved up again, then down, then again, slightly faster each time. On a sudden impulse, he started timing slides to match the movement against Rimmer's leg, and soon the actions seemed interlocked, as did the pleasure he gained from them both.

Rimmer pressed his leg against Lister's erection and moved it, as if hurrying that action would speed up the other. His gaaahs had turned to mnugghs as he clenched his teeth. Lister kept licking faster, sucking on the upstrokes. Rimmer started making little staccato pulses, chanting in time with them as he came, "Geh.. roon... hi... mo..."

Lister didn't know which surprised him more, the words, or the sudden ejaculation. The latter, however, soon overshadowed the former, and forced it from his conscious mind. He swallowed, but there was nothing in his mouth to go down his throat. He should have come by now, he pondered idly. Why hadn't he? Oh well, he was probably just over-stimulated. It happened. Things happened. Yes. Things. Strange things swam in his vision, and his head felt like it had been wrapped in cotton wool.

Rimmer came back to himself to find himself stroking Lister's cheeks, panting hoarsely. Stroking cheeks? No, that was wrong. He moved his hands down to Lister's shoulders, rubbing them. He felt very, very relaxed; the knots he had picked up from sleeping on the ground were now gone.

Lister gasped and shuddered at any touch anywhere on his body. Articulation, however, was a problem. "Mmm..." It was the best he could manage.

"Mmm. I'll have to take note of that." What the smeg did Mmm mean?

"s...." Lister replied, faintly. Rimmer raised his head to look doubtfully at this incomprehensible man. The man in question had his eyes closed.

"Lister..." Rimmer asked, licking his lips. "What..." he stumbled to a halt. What am I supposed to be doing? Holy smeg, what _have_ we been doing?

As though in trance, Lister opened his eyes. There had been some words. Said to him. Possibly. Why did his groin hurt? And there... There was someone there. Rimmer. No, _Arn_. He loved him. Yes. That was it. ArnwhomhelovedArn. That was nice.

Lister looked comatose, as if he had overdosed on that blessed weed. Maybe it was still in his system from the night before; maybe his body wasn't used to it. Rimmer cocked his head. "All right down there?"

Lister made incoherent happy mumblings.

"Oh, good..." Rimmer frowned, still gamely rubbing Lister's shoulders. If this was a too-long-alone matey kind of thing, shouldn't Lister want to come, as well? Did he really expect Rimmer to do... _that_ to him? Or even worse... Rimmer brought that line of thought to a screeching halt. He had used a finger or two when masturbating, yes, but that dangly bit of Lister's was a damn sight bigger than a finger or two.

Entirely of its own accord one of Lister's leg twitched, and he looked up into Arn's eyes suddenly. Rimmer blinked at him. "I think..." Lister pressed hard against him.

Too easy a target. "When did _that_ start?"

Lister put his finger to Rimmer's lips. "Shhhh...." This was important. He had to tell ArnyesloveArnthatwashisname; had to tell him something _important_.

Rimmer was struck by an odd impulse to lick the finger. It tasted of the grease of those woodland creatures they must have fried up for the feast, and had some musky flavor below it, which Rimmer realized must be the taste of him beating off overnight. It was oddly appealing, and Rimmer sucked the finger in.

"Think..." Lister gasped as his finger was licked. This did it - he came with impressive finality. "Love you..." Yes, that was the important thing. And god, it felt amazing to have told it, or was that something else? Never mind; feeling. Feeling was what mattered. LovingArnfeeling.

Rimmer spat the finger out. Lister _what_? Rimmer must have misheard. Or maybe.. this was a colloquialism. Or a convenience. Like on the smegging psi-moon. Something that made the... thing they just did more exciting for Lister. Lister collapsed on him, and Rimmer tried to move him up to a more mutually comfortable position. He had not gotten nearly enough sleep on the floor last night, and Lister was acting like he wanted to turn in, as well. Rimmer fumbled around, finally ending up with his arm winding under Lister's armpit and over his chest, as Lister smiled contentedly. "You and smegging love and smegging babies.... you're as bad as those sodding hippies..." Rimmer grumbled.

Lister laughed quietly. "Don't care. Still do."

"I slept like hell last night." Rimmer muttered. "They're going to write sodding hymns about how delightfully we fuck. Sing them at public events..." he trailed off. Had this been, truly, what this had been for Lister? Fucking? _Making love_?

Delightful fucking. Yes. Lister settled his head on Rimmer's chest. He'd never really thought about it before, but it was such a romantic word, wasn't it? He drew it out softly, gently. "Fuck..."

"Mm."

"You are gorgeous."

Rimmer shifted uncomfortably. "Don't die again. The first time was too strange." If all of this was the result of one death of Lister's, Rimmer did not want to contemplate what another might bring.

Laughter was happy but brief, as Lister choked on it. "Won't. This's too good..."

"And don't smegging snore. I'm tired."

Lister nodded in half-sleep. You had to make compromises. Oh, and on that note; "Promise won't 'dopt no babies."

"Thank the stars."

"Just... wanna be..." Lister's final slurred syllables sounded vaguely like 'with you.' He brought himself back enough to mumble, "We fuck good, Arn..."

Rimmer grasped for the remnants of his dignity, which were tied up with his Zed Shift Supervisor speeches. "Yes, miladdio."

The subordinate stirred uneasily in his sleep, his contented dreams interrupted suddenly by parades of identical-looking pipe-cleaners, which a giant clipboard insisted it was vital he be able to tell apart.

 

 

From Io, the sun had been just another star, twinkling and distant in an unending night. The founders of the colony had, however, placed the giant solar collection mirror in such a position as to create a bright pre-noon sun over the domed city, and a retractable barrier between them made for fairly Earth-normal-duration day/night cycles. So Rimmer was no stranger to the blaze of a morning sun, and the awkward way it can stream in a window and lie across a body, as if some higher power were pointing an accusing finger and saying, "Him! That's the schmuck, right there!"

Rimmer awoke to the early-morning sun streaming in the window. It pointed directly at him. It pointed at his mussed hair and unmade bed, and the clothes scattered haphazardly on the ground. It pointed to his nudity, to his tadger, which was suffering from an all-too-common morning erection, and to the semen that had dried into a crusty mess on his thigh and stomach. It seemed to give a little giggle as it pointed at the man who was sprawled over his left side, snoring merrily and drooling slightly on his chest. It was most assuredly shaking its head in disbelief as it pointed at his arm, which threaded under that man's armpits, pushed aside his braids, and terminated in a thin-fingered hand lying atop a dark nipple.

Rimmer closed his eyes, then reopened them. The scene stubbornly refused to change. His body stubbornly refused to admit that it felt anything other than comfortable with the arrangement.

He was smegging nuts.

Arnold J. Rimmer might not know many things - strike that, he _did_ not know many things - but one thing there was of which he was completely certain. He was not a smegging queer. He loved women (even if they did not normally love him back), and he most assuredly did _not_ love men. Not like that. Just - matey, friendly. Yes.

Rimmer sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, as much as it ripped at his viscera to even entertain the possibility, there was no getting around it. Lister was right. There, he had thought it. Lister had been right. Rimmer took a deep breath, coming to terms with that concept. Yes, as soon as he had... awoken? he had said Rimmer's light bee had been damaged. Rimmer had no idea how he had known - lucky guess, perhaps - but the fact was unavoidable. The way he was acting and feeling - there was no other explanation. It was some kind of light bee malfunction.

He needed to think. He couldn't do it in this position, with Lister on his chest and the sunlight snickering at him. He concentrated and changed to soft-light. Lister fell through him, landing with a thud on the hard bed. Rimmer froze as the man turned and mumbled in his sleep, saying something about lettuce, but when he did not wake, Rimmer ran out, his light bee brushing aside the light curtain.

The first sight that greeted him was, as always, the village of the clones. Rimmer sat down on the grass, staring down at them. The damned Listerene clones, with their unwarranted eternal chipperness and hedonism and contagious freakish sexual attitudes. They were of no use. They couldn't heal a wounded man, and they sure as smeg were in no state to repair a damaged hologram. One girl, who was headed out to the stream with a pail to fetch water, waved and winked at him. Tart. He flopped on his back, staring at the sky. The numbness of soft-light was a blessing; he did not want to feel.

 

Lister's eyes were not working. Odd. He'd opened them, so he should be seeing something, shouldn't he? That's the way it usually went, anyway. Unless... Bloody hell. He must have drunk himself blind! Rimmer was always telling him this would happen sooner or later; that he'd wake up one day and find himself sightless as a slug due to alcohol abuse. Lister had never taken him seriously; it had been _Rimmer_ , after all, and... Rimmer. Bit by merciless bit, his memory returned, as he lay there unseeing; the discovery that his sight problem was caused by stuck-together eyelids entirely failing to improve his mood. His mouth felt stickily parched, for reasons he'd rather not analyze all too closely, but it was too late for that.

Oh, smeg.

He got out of bed - usually such a simple act, but this morning, his balance and muscular control seemed to be off on holiday somewhere. Lister wished he'd gone with them. He stumbled to the floor and rubbed his jaw. What had he done? What had he bloody smegging gone and bloody smegging done? He kept rubbing, moving to his mouth, then his entire face. He only succeeded in making his skin feel raw and sore. Without the dubious benefit of blessed leaf, his thought processes of last night seemed no less true, but the idea of having _shared_ them, telling Rimmer he... Lister's eyes widened to a medically inadvisable degree. "Shit!" he shouted, almost in hysterics.

The word drifted outside of the hut. Rimmer shrugged. Odd that Lister should not be simply _delighted_ about the morning's activities. Hadn't he said, the night before, that he had _inclinations_ in that direction already? Perhaps he was simply regretting having confessed all of that to Rimmer. Who wanted their bunkmate to know they were secretly a poof? Or maybe, Rimmer thought with irritation, he was simply upset that he had slept with _Rimmer_.

Lister needed something alcoholic. There was no way he was going to face a world in which he loved Arnold Rimmer sober. He surveyed his surroundings, seeing, as expected, nothing. He briefly considered drinking the oils he could just about glimpse through the leaf-frond-curtain. Probably wouldn't kill him; they used them for cooking, didn't they? Probably wouldn't be a worse idea than smegging _sleeping_ with Rimmer while out of his head on smoke and drink. Sleeping with normal, well-adjusted people on a drunken whim could lead to confusion, hurt, and misunderstandings. Sleeping with a homophobic man whose psyche was 96 percent neuroses on a drunken whim and telling him you loved him? In a voice that was at least close to his normal tone and register, if still frantic, Lister shouted, "Shit!" At a loss for anything productive to do or think, he sat on the on floor and ran his fingers through his hair, biting his lip.

Rimmer sat up, too annoyed to lie still, and switched to hard-light. He picked up the bottle of oil that the grotting clones had left outside. Yes, they just loved the idea of their Watcher and their Sleeper getting it on, didn't they? Smegging voyeuristic perverts. He threw the bottle in the direction of the village with all of his might. The bottle did not get very far, but at least it split down the side, spilling its contents on the ground. "Bastards," Rimmer muttered. He put his arms on his knees and glared sullenly.

The thud of the bottle breaking made Lister jump. He looked around wildly, suddenly realizing he was still naked. He swore quietly and grabbed his jumpsuit, cursing his lack of wearable underwear. He put it on with nothing underneath, tying the top around his waist. He rushed out, saw Rimmer, and came to a screeching halt. He had not, he realized, thought this through in any great detail.

"What the smeg do you want?" Rimmer snapped. He did not turn to look at Lister, but he could feel the man behind him. He shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably.

Lister ran his fingers through has hair again, already sweating in the morning sun. His hand caught the tangled roots of his dreds, and he kept it there, his mouth open like an idiot. What _did_ he want? What had he been thinking? He'd been thinking too much and too damn clearly, that was the problem. What kind of a drug made you _clear_ -headed? Clear-headed, yet mellow enough not to care about the consequences of your actions. Well, now he did. Words finally formed in his mouth, and he forced them out gravely, yet desperately. "I am _so_ sorry!"

"Your smegging clones... can't be bothered to fecking evolve, can they," Rimmer muttered, looking at the village.

"Eh?" They didn't seem to be having the same conversation. Either that, or Lister was still drunk, high, or dreaming. All three were, he had to admit, entirely possible.

"No technology, no hospitals, nothing to fix my smegging bee..." Rimmer shook his head and cleared his throat, feeling Lister staring at him. He spoke in his normal voice. "You were right, Listy; the old bee must have taken a hit from the crash." He glared at the village again. Everything that was wrong with the present situation could be their fault, he decided. " _They_ can't smegging fix it. Couldn't fix a broken pot, that lot."

"Fix what?" Lister's eyes fell to the remnants of the nutshell bottle further down the hill. He couldn't be talking about that.

"My smegging light bee, you stupid goit!" Rimmer sighed, feeling almost physical pain over what he was about to admit. "You were right."

"Rimmer, what are you talking about?" Lister was allowed a few moments of safe confusion before reality hit. "Oh." They were back to that again. Well, at least he hadn't actually gone insane.

"I'm not a smegging fruit, Listy."

Or maybe not. Lister blinked, eyeing the pear-shaped purple bulbs hanging from a nearby bush. He was way out of his territory here. What if Rimmer started insisting he needed to be kept in a cool, dry place, or far away from bananas?

Rimmer turned at the silence that greeted that comment and saw confusion on Lister's face. "Queer! Poof! Chocolate-dipper! Smegging _gay_!"

Lister was almost annoyed. What did that have to do with anything? "So?"

"So?" Rimmer asked, his voice topping out in high-pitched incredulity. He snapped his head back around to look at the village again. "Something in that blasted crash must have mucked my bee."

Lister sighed and sat next to Rimmer, who gave him a glance before shifting to the side to allow a suitably straight-male space between them. And there it was. It was worse than he'd thought. Rimmer wasn't just confused and conflicted about having given in to his attraction to Lister - he clearly hadn't been attracted to Lister in the first place. What this morning had been - curiosity, the thrill of breaking a taboo? - it didn't matter. Rimmer was disgusted with what he'd done, and disgusted with Lister, to the point where he was certain there had to something physically wrong with him to have even entertained the possibility of doing what he'd done. There was no way to remove a lifetime of repression and bigotry with words, so Lister didn't even trying. Quiet and resignedly, Lister muttered. "Yeah, well, anyway... I wanted to apologize."

"Nothing to apologize for. Just a malfunction." Rimmer pointedly did not look at Lister. "You are what you are." He could not keep an emphasis off of the 'you.'

Lister shook his head. "I was drunk. Or... something, anyway. I had no right to..." But what good would explaining do? Rimmer wouldn't understand anyway, and if anything, would just get more upset and disgusted with him. "Yeah, well. Not that it matters now," he finished, flatly.

Rimmer's reply was as tart as one of the clone-girls. "Well, the next time you get _drunk_ , you might want to stay down in the village."

"I said I was sorry," Lister said quietly, resenting the unnecessary nastiness. He had apologized. He couldn't undo what he'd done. What else did Rimmer expect?

"And I said there was nothing to be _sorry_ for," Rimmer snapped back, firmly not looking at Lister.

Of course. It was never _Rimmer's_ fault, was it? How convenient to have a light-bee to blame things on, so he didn't have to come to terms with anything or gain any kind of personal insight. And god forbid he take any sort of responsibility for the feelings of other people! Lister watched him out of corner of his eye, anger churning. "Right. So yer _fine_ then? Apart from some minor light-bee damage? Fix ye right up and ye'll be nice and..." He shook his head hard in frustration.

"Who the smeg is going to fix me up?" Rimmer spat at the village. Useless smeggers. Only two times did he ever need anything from them, and they just would not _evolve_! He did not need their blasted liquor and leaves and women and smegging interfering matchmaking. "Even that smegging bogbot would be an improvement..." he muttered.

Lister rested his head on his knees, looking towards village. "Stupid, anyway," he mumbled. Him and Rimmer? What a laugh. Very funny. Endless hours of fun.

Rimmer glanced at Lister. The man hardly seemed to notice his confession, let alone care. He seemed wrapped up in something of his own - and what did he have to be upset about? He was alive, he had access to a Lister paradise with liquor and endless sex, so what was he so mopey over? "Look, do you think it's _easy_ for me to admit a malfunction like this?" Rimmer snapped. "You know I always pride myself on keeping in tiptop shape! But _this_...?" Rimmer shook his head.

"Yeah, real hard," Lister said, flatly. He moved his hands behind him, leaned on them, and looked up at the sky. It really was a very beautiful place to be miserable in. He sighed, deeply.

"I don't know what to do..." Rimmer felt his voice trailing off as he started to lose himself in self-pity. He shook himself. "I'll work something out," he said, decisively. "I can't let _this_ go on, after all. What would..." he stopped. What would his brothers say? His mum, his dad? All dead, but where was the sense in the universe if he did not still care what they thought? Still care about what was _right_ and _normal_?

Worry crept into Lister's face along side a gloomy suspicion. Was that what Rimmer was worried about? That Lister would... _force_ him? Manipulate him? Smegging hell. Careful to keep his voice neutral and calm, he turned towards the hologram. "Nothing is going to go on that you don't want, Ar..n." He remembered himself before the last syllable, but by then it was too late. The name had come so easily, but would not easily go away. He hoped that wasn't symptomatic of the rest of all this. "What the hell do you think I am?"

"What do I think _you_ are? Well, none of my business," Rimmer replied, loftily. He was tolerant, after all, of people who wanted to have their alternative lifestyles.

Lovely. Lister gave him a quiet, steady look through his anger. "Right. Nice to see you hold me in such high regard."

Rimmer frowned. Lister had spent almost all the time he had with Rimmer specifically trying to _decrease_ the regard in which Rimmer held him. He seemed almost to consider it a challenge, with his slovenly habits, his pranking, his calculatedly annoying behaviors. "You'll live..."

Lister's sigh sounded almost cynical. "Yeah, I will, at that." He stood up. "I'll leave you alone now. That's what you want, isn't it?"

Rimmer watched Lister nervously out of the corner of his eye. With Rimmer's bee malfunctioning so oddly, he did not trust the man to be close to him. "What I want? Utterly not the point, I think."

Lister brushed the dirt off of his jumpsuit and looked away from Rimmer. "I dunno. I tried, Rimmer, I really did. I knew it shouldn't have happened like it did, and I'm still smegging sorry, no matter what you say."

The pot of tension that had been simmering in Rimmer for over three hundred years, and had been filled to overflowing by Lister's resurrection and their inexplicable... activities, boiled over. "Stop saying you're smegging sorry!!" Rimmer yelled, jumping to his feet. "Sorry doesn't fix anything, does it?" He bit his quivering lip and clenched his fists.

Lister looked directly at him, but Rimmer did not meet his eyes. Fine. If Rimmer wanted anger and honesty, Lister would deliver. Once a day and twice on Sundays, thank you very much. "All right, then. Tell you what I'm not sorry about - that it happened at all. Shouldn't have been there and then, but at least it did happen. At least I'll have that." He clenched his eyes shut, his mouth a hard line. "But don't worry, I'll get out of yer hair. You won't ever need to see me again."

Rimmer's nostrils flared with irritation. Far, far too rich. Lister was _glad_ he had fucked his ex-bunkmate, and seemed upset that the feeling wasn't mutual. "Oh, don't let _me_ put you out. Just smegging delighted, you are, that..." Rimmer stuttered to a halt. So _lovely_ that Rimmer's breakdown had worked out so nicely for Lister, wasn't it? He probably _did_ want to boink some more and adopt a pack of sodding rugrats, and well and good for him...

Calmness had no place in this, and Lister shed it like the tears welling up, adding to his annoyance, in his eyes. All that was left now was anger; wild, free and loud. "Why the _hell_ did you bring me here, eh Rimmer? Why the swutting, smegging hell did ya bring me along, because it's pretty fecking clear that you _don't smegging want me_!"

Rimmer's mouth worked. "Y...." He bit his tongue. Stupid bastard. Rimmer _did_ smegging want him, was aching for him although they had made... had sex only hours before, and Lister could not realize how very, highly _wrong_ that was.

Did he just say that? Panting, staring into those brown-green eyes, Lister gave a slight almost-whimper. Want. He wanted Rimmer, that was the hell of it. Even after all this, even after they'd just sodding had sex, he still wanted him. Standing so close to the hologram, his adrenaline pumping, didn't exactly help.

"P...p..." Rimmer could not even smegging _speak_ , not with those eyes staring at him, and Lister whimpering like he had just that morning, in a way that should _not_ smegging well turn on anyone who was a halfway normal bloke! Rimmer watched Lister turn on his heel and stalk off. He tried to yell, but the word came out as a squeak "Pervert!" Hell, he didn't even know who he was referring to, anymore. He ran like a bulldog was on his heels.

 _Pervert_. Lister froze, not hearing Rimmer's frantic footsteps, and the breaking of branches underfoot. "What?" he said, the chill in his voice making the temperature drop well below normal for a tropical climate. Hearing no answer, he turned, seeing Rimmer's fleeing back. The hologram stumbled, fell, clambered back to his feet, and staggered onward, away from the village. Thinking nothing, just breathing, Lister watched until long after he was out of sight, trying to get a grip. And failing. Finally, he collapsed into a hunched position like a wet sack of kittens.

 

Rimmer ran like a crazed rabbit in heat, not knowing where he was going, only that it was _away_. He was horny as hell and hating himself for it; the running helped to vent the frustration some, at least. It did not help with the frustration when something leapt out of a nearby copse and tackled him, teeth scratching at his neck and claws catching at his uniform. All of Rimmer's forward velocity turned into a faceplant, as whatever was on his back bore him to the ground, screeching his ears off. Rimmer struggled, shrieking like a girl.

Whatever was atop him shrieked in harmony. It rolled with him, pinning him to the ground with far superior reflexes. Rimmer struggled and yelped, working himself to a position where his back was to the ground and his face to his tormentor. He froze. An impossibility stared back at him. "Wh... wh... wh..."

Cat was wheezing, and his suede jacket was covered with leaves and blades of grass. In an eerie voice, he said, "You killed him."

"Wh... wh... wh..." Rimmer's mouth was working pointlessly as he goggled at the impossibility.

"Now, I'm gonna kill _you_." Cat said, matter-of-factly. He was sure he had caught a whiff of that grody aftershave goalpost head used, and he was right. This was going to be fun.

 

_Pervert._

It wasn't the first time that word had been thrown in Lister's direction. Usually though, the offender would be a young lady of some description, giving him a well-deserved piece of her mind. That was fine - if he wanted to sneak into the locker room of the women's gym and hide in the supply closet, he'd take whatever they'd throw at him, which hadn't always been just words. Even Kris had called him that a couple of times when he's asked to see her naked before they were dating. But the girls had been angry, and he had been expected it, and Kris had been laughing, but Rimmer...

He hadn't been angry. He'd been disgusted and horrified.

He sighed, looking up at the sky again, flat on his back. Lying like this, it wasn't all too hard to imagine that the ground was just an extension of him, going on for miles and miles, surrounding the entire planet. He felt dizzy, and breathed in the surprisingly fragrant air. Everything about this place was heaven, wasn't it? So why did he have to ruin it by feeling like shit?

He sat up, and brushed the dirt off his shoulders and back. He'd been there for a while now, and his face was beginning to get that dull, insistent ache that signaled the beginning of a sunburn. On reflection, spending hours unprotected under a tropical sun after years of almost exclusively artificial light might not have been the wisest of moves.

Grunting, he got to his knees, and gazed in the direction of the village. A group of three or four girls were playing something that bore an uncanny resemblance to "Twister", but they were all laughing so hard at the contortions their half-naked bodies had been manipulated into that the game didn't seem to be progressing much at all. Neither they, nor Lister for that matter, seemed to care. He should go down there, he thought. That's clearly where he belonged; laughing, partying, not caring, getting fed things by gorgeous girls. On cue, one of them worked an arm free and gave him a little wave. He was about to return the gesture when he saw that the angle was all wrong, and that she was, in fact, signaling the tan, dark-haired girl on her way up the path towards Lister.

Lister scurried back, and by some miracle of locomotion managed to get to his feet by the time she'd arrived. Though straight-backed, relaxed and smiling, like the lot of them, there was something a little _off_ about this girl. Lister couldn't quite place it until she looked up at him and grinned, revealing a face he'd seen in the mirror every morning at about age twenty or so. She could be older, he realized; he'd had a hard time getting into the over-eighteen vid-shows long into his twenties. She did not, however, have the worry-lines and pallor he'd developed over the last few years, and her teeth were naturally perfect, not patched together by whatever means necessary with the help of Kryten's patient dentistry.

"Hi," this strange him-woman greeted him cheerfully, in a voice not far away in range from his own. Though she could pass for him in a tick duffel coat, or in dubious disco lighting, she was unmistakably female. Her features were softer, she was slightly shorter, her hips somewhat more pronounced, and her waist narrower, though not by much. And of course, she quite obviously had breasts, bouncing free above the pleated grass belt holding her short skirt in place. The sight of them, all full and dark-nippled, led his thoughts down the painful path of Rimmer's frequent comments to the effect that Lister _did_ in fact have breasts, but he was thankfully interrupted by a soft hand on his cheek. "Are you all right?"

The loving concern in her voice nearly pushed Lister back into tears, but he shook it off. He wasn't giving Rimmer the satisfaction. "I'm fine."

She smiled even wider, revealing traces of chewed blessed leaf between her teeth. "Oh, I'm glad! I saw the Watcher running off, so I thought I'd..." She frowned, as though suddenly remembering something. "I am Ilse. I gave pleasure to the Watcher yesterday." She jumped up and hugged Lister with less self-consciousness than a wet St. Bernard greeting its owner coming home from work.

Lister didn't have time to react to her statement before he was forced to react to her actions, which he did by staggering backwards and nearly tripping over the bottle Rimmer had thrown earlier. "Hey, hey, _hey_!" Normally, the close, eager proximity of women was something he enjoyed, but he'd had sex with himself one time too many. Besides which, this girl felt more like his daughter than anything else. His daughter, who'd... Grabbing her arms in both hands and holding her away from himself at their length, he spluttered, "You what?"

Ilse's smile didn't fade as Lister nearly shook her, but soon the gravity of his expression reached her own eyes. "You do not share?" she asked, haltingly. "I'm sorry; he said nothing, and you were still asleep. I suppose I just thought..."

"So, wait," Lister said, letting her go, and wiping the sweat from his now quite sore and itching brow, " _yer_ the girl he slept with?"

"We didn't sleep." Ilse looked downright eerie standing there, arms crossed below her breasts, head askew. She was friendly enough, but there was just too much of _him_ in her for Lister to take her seriously. "We had sex. Although," she hesitated, "we did do it in his bed. Was that what you meant?"

Smart girl, Lister thought. Daft him for assuming his words would mean the same to her as it did to him. Her being with Rimmer was making less sense by the minute. They couldn't have gotten on. "Yer a lot like me, aren't ya?" Too much like him. "What did he... What was he..." All these women, each more delicious than the next, and Rimmer goes and sleeps with the one that could pass for Lister. It didn't fit. Not with what Rimmer had just made abundantly clear.

"I enjoyed him, thanks!" It sounded like the kind of polite phrase you utter at the beginning or end of a meal, but nonetheless there was enthusiasm behind it. Ilse clearly _had_ enjoyed Rimmer. Which was nice, but not exactly what Lister was after. "Where was he going?"

"Eh?" Lister couldn't stop staring at her breasts. Maybe Rimmer hadn't been able to, either. Maybe one thing had led to another, and that had been all. Nothing more than the convenience of her being close at hand, her looks just an grotesque coincidence.

"The Watcher - I saw him running." Ilse's too-familiar brown eyes searched Lister's face as she rubbed her arms. There was a slight wind, probably enough to feel chilly to her heat-spoiled sensibilities. "I wanted to meet you. I hope I didn't disturb anything. Are you playing a game?"

Had he ever been like that? Lister wondered, as the absurdity of her question made him laugh out loud. Probably not. She'd grown up in a world where 'misfortune' was not being able to find your favorite nut right away that afternoon, or your lover saying something slightly rude about your new skirt. Even death was seen as a safe and natural, if not a wholly good, thing. Lister had seen them carry the dead away as he'd left the welcoming feast; there had been tears, but mostly smiles and cheers honoring their lives. This place was smegging insane. And Ilse had grown up here, knowing nothing else. No wonder she could see two men arguing as he and Rimmer had, and think it had been a friendly game. "No," he gasped finally, "it wasn't a game. We were..." How could he possibly explain? He settled for shaking his head, and smiling.

"What?"

"It doesn't matter. He doesn't want me." Her eyes narrowed in lack of comprehension. "Do you understand that? Doesn't want me, yeah? Not interested."

"Not interested?"

Lister sighed. "Look, I know it's hard for you to understand, but where we come from -"

"The other place," Ilse interrupted.

"The... other place, yeah." The girl was really quick on the uptake. "Up... over... whatever, there, people don't just accept everyone else. There are things like hang ups and smeg ups and misunderstandings, and fecking neuroses, and all sorts of goited crap that keeps people from saying what they really mean, or getting what they really want. Where I come from, people can 'share' and 'give pleasure'" he spat the words out as though they were a scraps of rancid tobacco he'd accidentally gotten into his mouth, "and not really mean anything by it! They can fuck you and make you want them, and then tell you being with you makes them sick!" As the last word left his lips, Lister realized he'd been shouting straight into a terrified-looking Ilse's face. "God," he choked, wondering how many times today he would have to say these words, "I'm so-"

But Ilse reached out and hugged him again before he could finish. "I think," she whispered in that ill-fitting Ionian accent, "I need to tell you something."

 

_Now, I'm gonna kill you_

"Wh... wh... HEY!" Rimmer yelled as the words penetrated. One possible explanation for the impossibility leapt to mind. It also rather conveniently explained the last several hundred years. "I've died and gone to hell," he squeaked.

Cat grinned a nasty grin that showed his teeth. "Damn straight, cattle-brand head."

"You're dead!" For a dead Cat, the Cat was certainly doing a good job of pinning his arms.

"No, _you're_ dead - pay attention!" Cat batted Rimmer in the face. Toying with your prey was very important, and he was quite good at it. The more afraid they were when you finally killed them, the better.

"I was dead before, you twit!" Rimmer shouted, fruitlessly trying to wrench his arms free. His legs were unpinned, however, and he brought one knee up with as much velocity as he could muster into the Cat's crotch.

More puzzled than surprised, the Cat frowned. "Now that's not very..." The sensation of his gonads being squashed very flat hit, and he folded carefully in two, making sure to fall in such a manner as to crease his suit as little as possible.

Rimmer found a part of him very much hoping that there was a rational explanation for Cat's presence, because the expression on the git's face had been one to treasure. He struggled to his feet, brushing grass and dirt off of his uniform and straightening it. He cleared his throat and spoke with pomposity. "I don't care if you _are_ a hallucination; you can bloody well behave yourself!"

From somewhere in the tall grass, Cat gave a very quiet kitten-like squeak. Rimmer smirked.

"Mister Rimmer, sir?" said the voice of another impossibility. Rimmer jerked and stumbled. He whipped around. "I think... yes, I really think I might possibly have to kill you," Kryten said, smoothly and evenly. He thought for a moment, looking at Rimmer. Nothing seemed to contradict his earlier statement, so he nodded happily. "Yes."

Rimmer looked at the impossible Cat and the impossible Kryten. For variety, he looked at the impossible Kryten and the impossible Cat. Oh, dear lord, he _had_ gone spare, hadn't he? He wondered if he would be struck with an inexplicable urge to sleep with them. He started to giggle. He pointed at Kryten, then at Cat. "You're..." he paused to titter, "dead."

Rather impressed with the simplicity and just plain overwhelming _rightness_ of his logical deduction, Kryten droned on. "Oh, true, it would burn out my harm-to human safety circuits, and thus end my existence, but frankly, I feel it would be worth it." He had thought this over quite carefully.

"I am completely, utterly," Rimmer giggled, "loony."

Cat struggled to sit up, grasping his painful crotch. "Bastard!" he said, weakly. This was one of the favorite parts of his body! He was going to be nice before, and kill alphabet-block head quickly, but the monkey had earned a slow one with _that_ move.

Rimmer sat down, laughing outright. All of the tension seemed to have drained right out of him. If he were mad, he wasn't responsible for anything, was he? It was terribly liberating. "Oh, this is..." he snorted another laugh. "Hey, I have an idea. Let's all," he chortled, "have a party!" He laughed very hard, watching Kryten stare at him with open-eyed bemusement. Cat moaned. "All of you... dead people! Lister, and the Brotherhood of the Frequent Fuckery..." Rimmer fell over on his side laughing. "And... _you_!" Rimmer snorted and pounded the ground, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.

Kryten backed slowly away. This might possibly be worse than he'd thought He snuck over to Cat, whispering, "I was right; his light bee must have gotten damaged in the crash. That's why I couldn't pinpoint him. Well smelled, sir!"

Cat attempted to sit up with at least a trace of dignity. "Thank you..." he whimpered. His testicles seemed to be returning to normal. Massive relief surged through him, alongside renewed bloodlust.

Rimmer's bout of hilarity started to run its course. He sat up, still giggling.

Kryten turned back to the matter at hand. "Now, which one of us should kill him?"

"Oh, take turns, please! Fun for _everyone_!" Rimmer grinned at Kryten.

Cat attempted to stand, as Kryten reflected further. "True, as a mechanical, I am outranked by any biological, and so it should fall to you, Mister Cat, sir," Kryten told him.

Rimmer staggered to his feet, pointing at the village. Oh, this was terrific. It explained everything, so nicely. One broad brush of madness swept over all of the issues and subtleties that were plaguing him. He was quite mad! He wondered what would happen if his two sets of hallucinations met each other. "Oh, but make sure all of _them_ get a chance." He covered his mouth with his hand to stifle a giggle. Cat and Kryten exchanged looks. Rimmer folded his hands and looked at them. "My, you're just as ugly dead as you were alive."

Kryten moved a step closer, carefully. Mister Rimmer should not be able to harm him, and in any case, the Cat's reflexes were better than any hologram's, but Mister Rimmer clearly was far into la-la-land. He might be able to summon reserves only afforded to the truly smegged-out-of-their-skulls. "Sir, you are not well. Now please cooperate and allow us to kill you."

Rimmer frowned at the stupid thick hallucination of Kryten. "Oh, for smeg's sake. I am not going to let some smegging hallucination of a grotting bog-bot kill me. Piss off back to whatever fevered dream you came from."

"Oh, I'm afraid we are very real indeed."

"Oh, yes, indeed." Rimmer snorted. He shook his head. "I saw you all die - and rather enjoyed the experience, actually."

"Oh, this is useless!" Kryten said to Cat. They should have brought the bazookoids, but then again, there was the matter of Mister Lister... He addressed Rimmer again. "Yes, that's all lovely, sir. Now, if you'll just be kind enough to tell us where you've put-" his voice broke, "Mister Lister's body..." he lost it completely, and started to shake with tearless mechano-sobs.

Rimmer sighed, rolling his eyes. "His body is over in the village. With his mind still in it, more's the pity."

Kryten frowned. If anything, this made even less sense than what he'd been saying before. Had he _wanted_ to remove Mister Lister's brain, but had been unable to? "Are you saying... you didn't..." Kryten searched around for ways in which to remove brains that would seem logical. None came to mind. "Scoop his brains out? Why would you?"

"How would I have _found_ them?" Rimmer snapped.

"I appreciate that you are quite, quite mad, but even so, sir, you've lost me."

Cat, who had been gently prodding himself, took a few experimental steps. He whipped out a clothes brush, cleaned the leaves and grass off of his jacket, swept a comb through his hair, and extended his claws. "Lemme kill him!"

Rimmer glared down his nose at Cat. "Look, if you two hallucinations are _quite_ done..."

Kryten put a pacifying hand on Cat's shoulder. "Please, sir, we _do_ need to find out where he's buried Mister Lister."

"Buried?" Rimmer shook his head. "Look, why don't you two... things... go pay him a visit?" He waved in the general direction of his hut. "I'll be over here, going quietly mad." He turned, looking at the sun and the bright, green grass. It was a lovely day to be mad. He started to whistle.

Cat and Kryten exchanged looks again. "Look, we know what you did!" Cat yelled. Turning to Kryten, he hissed, in a voice loud enough to be heard by theoretical civilizations far underground, "Is it me, or is he even crazier than normal?" They followed at a cautious distance, Cat cocking his head from side to side to keep a close eye on the weirdo.

Rimmer glanced back at them. It was not kind of the hallucinations to not let him be mad in peace. He flipped his hand at them. "Shoo."

Kryten rubbed his hands together. "Erm... if it wouldn't be too much bother... could you provide us with exact co-ordinates? It's just you won't be able to when I've extracted your light bee from your body and mangled it beyond repair."

Rimmer spread his hands, exasperated. "Why would I have exact coordinates of that free-love fest? And why would I give it to two... smegging... hallucinations?"

Cat's ears perked. "Free love?" Oh, that sounded good! He might have a chance to kill goalpost head _and_ have sex with something. If he found something to eat, it might turn into a very good day indeed.

Yes, that was just like Cat. Rimmer frowned. "Startlingly realistic hallucinations..." Gears in his head started to turn. They latched onto his earlier thought about running the two sets of hallucinations together, and ran it around for a while. They liked it. "Look... why don't you..." he put one finger to his lips, a gesture he always found oddly settling and others always found oddly unsettling. Or was that _because_ others... never mind. "Come with me." Rimmer glanced at the hallucinations, so oddly like Cat and Kryten just moments before their deaths. He would have to give his subconscious a good talking-to. It _could_ have hallucinated some lovely nymphomaniacs who looked nothing like Lister, after all.

"Right, and let you lead us into one of your crazy death-traps or somethin'? Not _this_ Cat!"

Rimmer put on his most soothing tones. Other people tended to find them terribly grating, but that was hardly his fault. "I just want to take you to see his body."

Mister Lister's body! How wonderful... But that meant he was dead, and not alive any more, and there would be no more underwear to scrub, but at least they had found him, and oh no - but it was terribly comforting, but oh goodness... Kryten's features twisted into a bizarre sequence of faux expressions. "Oh, splendid!"

Cat shifted his still-sore jewels in his trousers. "Bastard," he muttered, glaring daggers at Rimmer. Box-head would not let him kill ugly-face right now, then. Fine; he could wait.

Rimmer was rather pleased that he ran so haphazardly before. He had a wonderful talent for getting lost, one that he discovered in the Space Scouts, but he left a trail that Ray Charles could follow. He folded his hands behind his back and casually strolled back the way he came. He resolutely did not look at or talk to the two hallucinations. He was still rather put out at his subconscious, so he whistled, looking at the scenery, hoping that it would get bored and provide something more appealing. They refused to change, however, and followed him all of the way back to the hill that his hut sat atop.

Cat glared at the back of fridge-magnet head, annoyed that he had to wait to kill him. Cats did not have friends, but Lister had fed him, which gave Cat a perfectly good reason to loathe the spindly one even more than he had before. It also gave Cat a good reason to kill him - which he hardly needed, as killing _that_ one would raise the overall coolness and handsomeness of the universe significantly.

Kryten sniffled slightly, running his memory back over scenes of his time with Lister. Making his early-morning pick-me-up breakfasts after a night of heavy drinking. His patient, long lessons trying to teach Kryten how to lie. He'd never given up, not his Mr. Lister, no sir! His love of Indian food and chilies... "His face used to light up whenever we found a fresh supply of Indian spices. Who will eat those crates of chili-chutney now? They'll start corroding the deck in a few weeks’ time!" Kryten had scrubbed all of his long johns over and over again on the trip over here. There was a distinct glow when you opened his underwear-drawer now.

"Swutting infatuated mechanoids," Rimmer muttered. Three female Space Corps test pilots, in those tight silvery uniforms, with straight blonde hair, smiling shyly at him while they fingered their zippers. Rimmer prodded his subconscious, but it refused to oblige.

Lister stood on the hillside, looking thoughtfully out over the village. Ilse was long gone, but her words still lingered in his mind. He wasn't sure what they meant yet; he still wasn’t sure what _any_ of this meant. All in all, though, he felt a damn sight better. They had time, he and _yes, dammit,_ Arn. Nothing was impossible. He'd almost forgotten that. Hearing footsteps, he turned quickly, thinking Arn had returned.

He had. But not alone. "Cat? Krytes?" All right then; yes - _nothing_ was impossible!

"Bud?" Cat called back. He sniffed, then wrinkled his nose. Yep, that was his bathless bud, all right.

Kryten was almost in hysterics, his joy-chip shorting out. "Mister Lister!"

"Hell..." Rimmer staggered backwards, his jaw slightly unhinged. Lister saw them, too. "Oh, hell," he croaked.

Lister ran towards them, beaming. "Guys!" They all embraced in a jumble of hands, words and laughter.

Rimmer shook his head. If _Lister_ saw them, they couldn't be his hallucinations. But they were dead. He saw it! He looked carefully as Lister's hands touched Kryten's shoulder plate, Cat's arm...

"I thought you was dead!" Lister cried.

"We thought _you_ were dead!" Cat replied. "Didn't goalpost head kill you?"

Lister frowned. "Wha? Of course not, he saved me life!"

All was still for a moment, as the four of them stood there, looking from face to face with increasing incomprehension. Until, suddenly, a quiet tittering, almost giggly, erupted from Kryten's square lips. "Oh, dear," he spluttered. "Oh, how amusing..."

Lister raised an eyebrow. "Wha? What's so funny?"

Kryten continued to giggle - a very strange thing for an angular mechanoid to do. "Oh, just wait until you hear this one!"

"Just tell me, guy!" Lister said, exasperated.

Rimmer was having a hard time coming to terms with this. After a few static centuries, three people who he had been very, very sure were quite dead were all walking and talking just like normal people, within the space of a day. He pointed at all of them. "You're... not... dead."

"'Course not!" Cat hissed. "So shut up!"

Rimmer got to his feet. "Doesn't _anyone_ stay dead??" he barked. He pointed at Cat. "Even just you? Would that have been too difficult?"

"I think I know what happened here!" Kryten exclaimed, waving a finger knowingly.

"Right." Rimmer folded his arms, having as much faith in the mechanoid's analysis as he did in that bottle of relaxation tonic Lister had given him to make up for a fight over his ninth go at the astronavigation exam. It had fizzled worryingly when he poured it down the loo.

Kryten could hardly speak for repressed laughter. "You see... when our future selves tried to kill us, they must have destroyed the time-drive in their barrage, completely by accident. Therefore, our future selves erased themselves, and the timeline began to change."

" _I_ shot the smegging time-drive!" Rimmer yelled.

Kryten hurried on, lost in his narrative, paying no attention. "When Mister Rimmer hightailed it in the escape pod, he couldn't possibly know that the timeline would re-align itself and return us to normal - so he escaped for no reason!" Kryten laughed heartily. "My, oh my," he gasped, wiping an imaginary tear from his ductless eyes.

Damned stuck-up mechanoid. Rimmer clamped his lips shut to keep himself from sputtering. Not to mention, damned stuck-up and utterly _wrong_ mechanoid. Pause. Regain control of mouth. "It didn't smegging re-align! Lister was dead when I opened the pod." Rimmer stopped, something else filtering through his brain. A Something Else that he should have thought of before. But he had been attacked by a killer smegging Cat, he justified, which should forgive him a little absent-mindedness.

Lister spoke before him. "So hang on, hang on. Yous guys returned to normal right away? Why'd ya hang about so long before coming to rescue us?"

Rimmer smiled a very pertinent vulture smile, tapping his mouth with his forefinger. "Or did I halt your recovery when I put Lister into stasis?"

Kryten coughed an artificial cough and raised his imaginary eyebrows. "Well," he said, uncertainly, "there was that odd business with the ship's chronometers..." He'd thought it had just been a relapse of that malfunction Mister Lister had tried to fix with a stick of cinnamon gum. Kryten _had_ warned him that peppermint would have been much more stable, but he really could be quite stubborn at times.

Rimmer stared as Kryten stuttered to a halt. That Something Else that was filtering through his brain was not a good Something Else. It threatened to discomfit him greatly. He had one cure for his own discomfort, however, and that was to make those surrounding him even more uncomfortable; he prided himself on his ability to discomfit. He slowly raised one eyebrow in a discomfiting manner, still tapping his lips with his forefinger.

"Oh my," Kryten stuttered. This was far worse than anything gum-related. Even peppermint would be unlikely to fix this.

Cat frowned. "How long you dudes been here, anyways?"

Rimmer grimaced. The answer to that question meshed very badly with the Something Else that had settled in his brain. "Good question. I lost count."

Startled, Lister swiveled around to face him. Lost count? Rimmer _never_ lost count, once he got started on something. Once he became hard-light, the smegger had patiently written down in a new report book every insult Lister had tossed since his death, painstakingly committed to memory. Lister remembered the wall, all neat rows of lines, going on and on. Why would he have stopped? Unless, Lister thought grimly, he'd stopped caring...

Kryten spoke in a measured voice. "It would appear that... ahem... your putting Mister Lister into stasis indeed did slow our recovery down. By about... well, I couldn't say exactly, but..."

Lister's eyes widened, as rows of charcoal lines danced in his head. Hundreds of years, waiting for Lister to wake up. Then thinking he was dead. Then the shock of him coming alive, and it had all been... for nothing? He was surprised Rimmer hadn't started disintegrating into tiny, sparkling, hard-light pieces.

As Kryten had faltered, Rimmer, still in one miserable piece, took over. "Ooooh, three hundred years or so?" It had all fallen into place. A very Arnold-is-a-schmuck place. He turned and kicked the ground. A bit of uncovered turf stared back at him and offered nothing useful. "Smeg!"

"Yes, thereabouts," Kryten replied, carefully.

"If I hadn't smegging bothered to put him in smegging stasis..." Yes, Arnold, if you had just left things alone, they would have fixed themselves. Instead, you spent a few centuries with a civilization of Listers, while your three crewmates waited out the time comfortably in death. Will you ever learn to stop meddling, you dumb bastard?

Cat's nostrils twitched. He looked around, finally homing in on the village. "I smell something." He squinted at the village, sniffing the air. "Something bouncy." Things that might make up for not being able to kill goalpost head with his bare hands.

Rimmer wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Oh, yes, always in tune with the _important_ things."

"I think I need to go investigate further. Excuse me." Cat headed towards the village. He smelled soft and squishy things. Things he could have sex with. Things with wet bits that would make his important bit feel very, very good. Kryten looked on thoughtfully as Cat danced off towards the village. Organics never failed to surprise him in their choice of pastimes.

"He won't know what to do with them," Rimmer grumbled. Cat probably thought girls looked just like him, only not as attractive. He wouldn't know what to do with a pair of breasts. Let alone... "Never seen a twat in his life."

Three hundred years, Lister thought. It had never really struck home until now. What Ilse had said; Rimmer's cruddy behavior; all of it. All of it. Staring at Rimmer, he found it hard to believe that the man was still holding it together at all. All of this, he'd done all of this for Lister, and what had he done in return? Been a twonk about it all, that's what he'd done.

The import of the village and Rimmer's earlier statements had finally sorted themselves into a scenario. A very strange one, but the only one that fit all of the facts. "You used the pod's seeding ability, then?" Kryten asked.

"Yes, may I rot in Hades for even contemplating such a move."

"He made a whole people out of me. They're all like me," Lister said quietly, still staring at Rimmer.

Kryten made a heroic effort at wrinkling his brow, which, unfortunately, was just not made for that sort of thing. "Really, sir?" This was passing strange behavior for Rimmer. Not taking the pod and running, no. The only thing that surprised Kryten about _that_ move was that he waited so long. No, cloning a race out of Mister Lister. Kryten had a very strange, quite novel feeling about this. Unfortunately, his copy of 'Your Syntho-Motions And You' was back in Starbug, and so he had no idea what it was.

"Unfortunately, yes," Rimmer told the divot he had toed into the turf.

Kryten eyed Rimmer, doing the equivalent of having his emotion sit down for a spot of tea and biscuits while he got comfortable with it. "I find that a little bit odd."

"A _little_?" Rimmer hooted. "It's the most dysfunctional society you have ever seen in your smegging runtime, bogbot!"

"So why did you make it?" Kryten asked.

"I thought..." Rimmer waved. "I mean..." he gestured, as if his arms, one wildly flailing at Lister, the other at the village, could communicate an overriding despair at the concept of Lister's death, which had turned out not to be a death, and his hope to use the villagers to heal Lister, who did not need it, after all, using a technology they had never gotten close to evolving. "I..." Rimmer threw his hands in the air, then dropped to sit on the ground as his arms fell. "Oh, smeg it, I don't know why. Latent masochism." He was startled at the bitterness in his voice.

Kryten watched this display with bemusement. He considered the actions the emotion wanted him to pursue, and judged it to be a complex mixture of surprise, disbelief, concern, annoyance, and jealousy. He started to parse it, judging the relative contribution of each component. "It's just - and I hope you'll pardon me for saying so, sir - that given your usual modus operandi, one would have expected you to dump Lister's body, try to reprogram the pod, and get the hell out of Dodge. Not raise an entire civilization of clones."

Such a sensible course of action. A _damned_ sensible course of action. It fit every Rimmer directive to a tee. "Yes, that _would_ have made a lot more sense, wouldn't it have?" He stroked his chin. He would have escaped. The others would have come back to normal within - minutes, hours? Soon, at least. They would have chased him down, and all four would have gone on just as before, sniping and yelling and being mean bastards to each other. No hundreds of clones, no lost centuries, no Lister-girls with clean braids and powerful hooch, no odd light bee malfunctions that made him want to kiss and fondle his ex-bunkmate. Rimmer's hand dropped, and he watched it flop to the grass between his legs.

Lister gave Rimmer a sad look. "He doesn't make sense, that man. Never did; why start now?" Bitterness saturated his voice. His short, Ilse-induced burst of optimism was fading; funny how just a few minutes with good old Arnie J. could do that to a person.

Kryten looked thoughtfully at them both. "I'll... I'll just go and see how Mister Cat's getting on, shall I?"

"Take a hammer and a squirt gun," Rimmer growled.

"If you think that will help," Kryten said, puzzled, and trotted off, wondering where he would find either in this place.

Rimmer could feel Lister approaching. Was it too late? Could they go back to normal - after all of _that_? He stood. "Well, that's that." Lister's gaze rose with him, and did not let up. Rimmer could not meet his eyes, could not see the _want_ that lived there, the want that was echoed by his own damned malfunctioning bee. "Back to the 'Bug." He forced his voice to be chipper, and dusted the soil off of his trousers.

"That what you want, then?" Lister asked in a measured voice.

Rimmer turned to look at him, incredulous. Smegging gay Lister might be, but didn't he understand, now, that Rimmer wanted none of it? Or would want none of it, once he was repaired. "Of course. Do you really think I want to live out my run-time on Listerworld?"

Lister met his eyes, levelly.

" _You_ want to live your life out here?" Part of Rimmer applauded the idea. A part that never wanted to see Lister again, Lister with his eyes and lips and ability to draw out bits of Rimmer he was quite happy not having drawn out. A larger part of Rimmer did not like this idea at all. He supposed it to be the damaged part.

Lister looked away for a second. "Wouldn't be the worst idea I've had." When he turned back, there was a renewed intensity in his eyes. Living here. No, not a bad idea. Second choice, perhaps, but not a bad one.

Rimmer spread his arms, indicating the world. " _This_ might very well be the worst idea _I've_ ever had." In every way. In every sodding possible way. Everything it had done to him, and oh god, he hoped it could be undone.

Lister smiled, very faintly. "You don't get it, do you? What you've created?"

"All I had to do was _wait_ ," Rimmer found himself almost wailing. "Just smegging... sit there."

"You made a paradise. Might not be your type of paradise, but it _is_ fer them." No poverty, no crime or major diseases as far as Lister could tell. Young and old lived and loved together, everyone getting the respect they deserved. Damn sight better than the Earth he had left, that was for sure.

It was all rather funny, Rimmer decided. He chortled. "That's all I had to do." He kicked at the unoffending turf again. Damn that turf. Blast it all to smeg for being so inoffensive, for being so soft and inviting, for making him want to lie on it naked with Lister atop. It was all the smegging turf's fault.

"How many people can say they've made a whole race of people happy, Rimmer? Eh? You did that. You helped make them what they are. They love you, you know that? Can't get enough of ya." Lister smiled a little. "Stands to reason that, though I know you don't want to hear it." Rimmer crossed his arms, shaking his head, as Lister moved to stand next to him. "This isn't my world. It's yours."

"You can have it," Rimmer said, quietly. It must be better for both of them for Lister to stay behind. It _must_.

"It's not mine to take." Lister pointed. "It's theirs. Can you at least appreciate that? Fer smeg's sake, Rimmer, you did something good here! You did something damn good!"

"So you say." Rimmer shrugged. "I didn't do it for them. I did it for me. They..." Rimmer waved one arm in the direction of the village, "were just a by-product. And I didn't _need_ them anyway, after all..." Ah, yes, the ultimate irony. He felt a need to taste it, chew on it before swallowing it again, slowly digesting. It was a huge chunk of irony, after all.

Unbelievable. The man was downright unbelievable. "Right. Fer you. Because you desperately wanted a race of - what was it? Gerbil-faced hippie clones?" He'd tried to explain to Ilse what a gerbil was. She'd seemed amused by it.

"You bet I smegging didn't."

"So _why_ , then? Kryten is right; this isn't like you. You could have fixed the pod on yer own, but you didn't." Lister walked over, raising his face and staring at Rimmer, his folded arms close enough to brush Rimmer's uniform, which he wanted to do, along with a whole host of other things, but this wasn't the time. He wasn't making that mistake again. "So why, then? Why did ya do it?"

Had he not made this _clear_ enough? What did Lister think - that he _did_ have a highly bizarre masochistic streak? He put his palms on Lister's shoulders and pushed the other man away. "Because you were smegging dying! What else could I have done? Sod-all, that's what!" Rimmer was spitting by the end.

"Exactly," Lister said, flatly.

Rimmer felt himself deflate as the part of him that was dealing with the large chunk of irony latched onto that reality, with glee. "Except you weren't dying."

"You didn't know that."

"You were already dead." Rimmer shrugged. "I must have known... somewhere. I must have seen those readings. And not let myself see what they meant." He wasn't _that_ smegging clueless. Or careless. Rimmer shrugged again. He held onto a false hope that someone he did not particularly like, someone who did not particularly like him, was still alive, despite readings that clearly showed that he was not. Arnold Smegmeister Rimmer.

"And you still stayed." Dammit, Arn, have some insight into yourself, Lister fumed. Even Kryten had gotten it; Lister had seen the looks he'd given both of them, the way he'd left so hurriedly. When _Kryten_ is more in touch with your feelings than you are, it is beyond a bad sign.

"I think I was malfunctioning even before we crashed," Rimmer muttered. Perhaps. Certainly this odd... besotting with Lister would explain his selective blindness.

"Malfunctioning, yeah." Lister gave a sad smile. You had to at least give the man credit for consistency.

Rimmer held to that bit of objective science tightly. "I mean, holography was new when we left the solar system. They can't have meant for me to run _this_ long. And who knows what Legion did..." Rimmer stuttered to a halt.

Lister half-turned away. "Well, I'm for one am glad yer still here." He crossed his arms over his chest, realizing that he'd seen an echo of this pose in Ilse, not knowing what to think about that. Surreal, the whole of this planet.

"Great," Rimmer replied, flatly. He looked at his arms, looking for imperfections. Something. Some outward sign of his inner turmoil. "Maybe I'll just... flicker out."

Quite by impulse, Lister took his hand, gently. "Please don't," he said, quietly.

"It isn't exactly my call, miladdio!" Rimmer snapped. This... infatuation hadn't been his choice, either. Who knew what his bee might do? It wasn't like a real body, which gave some _warning_ of when it was going off.

"I know."

"Unless you trust that auto-duster to fix me," Rimmer grumbled. "Quite frankly, I can't think of anything else." He hated the idea of that tin can getting his cool jelly-rubber hands on Rimmer's bee. But what other choice did he have? Just like with the clones, he thought with bad grace. He looked up to see Lister staring at him with glistening eyes. Rimmer looked away, and Lister dropped his hand with a sigh. Rimmer bit his lip. Lister's hand. Lister's eyes. They... enhanced his malfunction, somehow. Made him feel desire and want. He sat, staring at his hands, and took a deep breath. "Sod Kryten, sod Cat, sod our future selves. Sod your smegging clones, every last one, sod you, and smegging well sod me."

Lister hugged himself. "Why'd ya have to do that? Hate yerself so much?"

Rimmer lay back, looking up at the sky. "Just going with popular opinion," he had to admit.

Lister laughed heartily. "Yer impossible, aren't ya? What, a _race_ of people isn't enough? What do ya want, a smegging solar system of adoration?"

Rimmer shook his head. "They think I'm a smeghead. Just like you. They _love_ pranking. After three hundred years of evolution, their blasted pranks are still as smegging stupid as the ones you used to pull on Red Dwarf."

This spoke to Lister's pride, and he offered, over his shoulder, "Hey, stupid can be funny!"

"Not intentionally." Rimmer turned his head, looking at the leg of Lister's overalls. It was right next to him. The turf was soft at his back. He was filled with such aching need from the _nearness_ of it - and yes, it was near. Close enough to reach out and grab. Rimmer did so.

Lister started, nearly losing his balance as something tugged at his leg. It wasn't exactly a relief when he saw what the cause of it was. Wrong time again. Even worse, this time. And yet, there was a stronger pull on him than that exerted by that long, lean hand.

Rimmer felt hypnotized. He needed to explain to the rational part of him what he was doing, because it for smegging sure was not in the least bit rational. "Kryten's... going to fix me," he breathed, pulling on Lister's leg.

 _Wrong, wrong, wrong_ , Lister's common sense screamed at him as he followed the pull, getting down on his knees.

Rimmer reached up, taking Lister's cheeks between his hands. Soft, warm; they fed his need and increased it. Rimmer pulled down, hearing Lister sigh with deep relief, letting himself be pulled. If feeding increased the hunger, Rimmer thought absently, he was in quite a bit of trouble. He pulled Lister's face down until their lips met, opening his mouth and kissing him deeply. He ran his hands over Lister's cheeks and neck, feeling their lovely texture, only wanting more the more he touched. "Once more... before he fixes me..." he mumbled through his kisses, to reassure his rational mind.

Lister whimpered. "Yes," he mumbled quietly, his brain screaming _no!_ Fortunately, or unfortunately, the forces urging him on were much more vocal than the ones holding him back. Shut up, he willed at them, knowing he would pay the price eventually. Something this good had to be worth it, though... Yes? _No_ , his mind retorted, but he asked it to shut up again.

Rimmer grabbed Lister's back, pulling him in to lie tightly atop, his body so close to Rimmer’s - but not nearly close enough. "Not... my fault," Rimmer moaned.

"It's all right," Lister said soothingly, caressing Rimmer's face.

Some part of Rimmer assured him that an interruption of this kissing would be physically painful, and so he mumbled into Lister's mouth. "Nothing's all right." He pushed at Lister's jumpsuit, feeling the man's solid body, so unlike anything he was _supposed_ to want. But smeg, he wanted it.

Lister kissed just as desperately, panting. "Can't... ya... pretend?" He helped Rimmer get the jumpsuit off of him. "Just... fer... now?"

"Eh..." Wasn't he pretending, now? Pretending this was good and normal? Pretending it would last? Damn, it was a seductive pretense. He licked Lister's ears and neck, rubbing the man's chest, the sparse hairs tickling his fingers.

Lister leaned his head back, shuddering, making incoherent noises.

Rimmer pushed the jumpsuit farther and farther down, pulling up on Lister - or was he pulling himself down? did it matter? - to lick and bite at his chest. The taste of sweat and mechanic's grease from the jumpsuit, with the musky taste of _Lister_ underneath, should not be tolerable, let alone erotic, his rational mind assured him. He told his rational mind to go hang.

Lister tried to pluck at Rimmer's jacket fastenings, wanting it gone, wanting them both naked, but most of all, wanting this all not to be some smegging grand finale. No, hell no, he wouldn't _let_ it be!

Rimmer, somehow, did not care one whit to be unclothed. He slid his hands inside to Lister's buttocks, and grabbed them, licking Lister's navel thoroughly. All of those flavors were pooled in there, a slightly more intense area.

Lister cried out, leaning in and down to suck at Rimmer's neck, which didn't taste of anything except the faint alcoholic hint from the aftershave he could no longer smell through all this other sensory input, so he sucked harder, as if to compensate. Damn clothes were in the way, but he didn't have the presence of mind he needed to help get them off.

The jumpsuit was in the way. It seemed to mock Rimmer, laughing at the access it denied him to the very good bits of Lister. Arnie J. was in no mood to be mocked. He rolled over and sat up, grabbing Lister's boots, and yanked them off. Lister, looking dazed, let it happen. Rimmer then grabbed the legs of the jumpsuit, yanked them off, and tossed them away in triumph. The sight of Lister's naked body took his breath away and shot a wave of arousal through him that landed in his gut like a punch. This, he decided, was most definitely not normal.

The wildness of it all, Rimmer so clearly _needing_ him, was intoxicating. Lister gave a lusty smile, and raised himself up on one elbow. This was not good enough, he thought, pulling Rimmer towards him by the back of his neck, mouth already open for a deep kiss. He couldn't wait to taste him, lick him, envelop him completely. Not the last time, _dammit_!

Rimmer threw himself full-length on Lister's body, opening his mouth wide, trying to reach Lister's hippocampus through the back of throat with his tongue. He stroked up Lister's thighs, his fingertips just brushing the soft skin of his testicles at the top.

Driven to new heights of frantic lust by Rimmer's actions, Lister kissed him back with ferocity, grabbing his buttocks as if for support, trying to pull Rimmer in closer than he knew was technically possible.

Rimmer brought one hand to Lister's erection, grabbing it firmly. Smeg, it was most definitely not normal for him to want to taste it. He opened his own trousers with his other hand and started to stroke himself. Orgasm would end this... madness that seemed to have no bounds. He stroked Lister firmly.

The more-than-welcome touch made Lister's eyes roll back, and his back arch, but he felt slightly cheated at the hologram should have all the fun. Batting Rimmer's hand away, he grabbed the erection that was not his own, and held it tightly.

This threw Rimmer off balance; he tipped to one side, grabbing the ground with his suddenly free hand. He grasped Lister's erection even tightly as he wavered. Lister made his own grip firmer in response, gritting his teeth, and Rimmer whined.

Surely there was a better use of his mouth than this, Lister mused, and stuck his tongue out to lick what he could of Rimmer's face, which turned out to be his lips and chin. When and as they became available, he turned his attention to his cheeks, kissing them joyfully.

Rimmer pumped hard and fast, feeling himself swimming in some strange, thick, heady sea of ecstasy as he opened his mouth and let Lister's tongue move over his face and inside of his mouth.

Lister threw his free arm around Rimmer and pushed at him with his body, rolling the hologram over and landing on top. Rimmer barely noticed. The universe had narrowed down to a hot, sweaty body against him, a stiff, bumpy cock in one hand that he pumped desperately, and an agile tongue that licked as if it were trying to find a candy center.

Lister removed his own hand from Rimmer's erection as he pressed his own, still in Rimmer's hand, against it, because there was just not _enough_ of anything. He felt there would never be enough of anything, not ever, not if they were together for a thousand years - Rimmer had lived for a thousand years, he mused, in the detached way thought would come during the heat of sexual ecstasy. Well, it was not enough, regardless.

Rimmer moaned and hissed in a breath, pumping hard and fast. He couldn't even tell whose erection was in his hand, now. A sweaty body was atop him, slithering and licking, and the tongue in his mouth and over his lips and his cheeks belonged to a pair of wet brown eyes that he would see if he opened his eyes, he could see even if he kept them closed, they were staring and oh, he needed to come or this ache would kill him, it would...

"Shit... God... Arn..." Lister teetered on the edge of orgasm that he both wanted and didn't want, because it would mean the end of this, and a return to rational thinking, which would, he suspected, be rather angry with him for what he'd just done.

Rimmer came, still pumping desperately at Lister's erection. He whined into Lister's ear, and the orgasm was delicious, but the ache was still there.

Much against his will, Lister came as Rimmer did, because there was no way of holding back in this intense coupling of the two of them; they minds and bodies one. He pressed one hand against Rimmer's cheek, clamping the other on his buttock, and held on for as long as the long, shivering spasms thrilled through him, willing them to go on longer than he knew was possible, because hell, this should not, could not _end_...

Rimmer shuddered with his oddly unsatisfying orgasm, pulling out Lister's shudders.

"Yes," Lister gasped, quietly. "Arn, man..."

Rimmer pulled his come-covered hand up, holding it between their faces, wanting to demand an explanation. Why? I gave in, so why am I so smegging _unsatisfied_? Lister kissed the nape of Rimmer's neck, burying his head in it, as Rimmer dropped his hand, letting it fall to the ground. He wiped it off on the grass, that smegging lying, tempting turf.

Lister hugged Rimmer tightly, almost painfully. "Can't lose this..." His voice was desperate. "Hell..." He'd done a stupid thing; a stupid, goited, idiotic thing, but how could he not? He'd be twice smegged if he let it slip through his fingers now; hell no! Not ever! Not _ever_!

Rimmer rested his other hand on the small of Lister's back, thinking of repair. Normalcy. The right thing. "You can lose anything."

"Don't want to," Lister said, his anger firm, unflinching. _Can't_!

Rimmer sighed. Want. Well, didn't Rimmer want _this_? But this wasn't right and normal, and didn't he want to be right and normal? Smegging hell, everyone did, didn't they? "We don't always get what we want," he replied, bitterly.

Anger ate at Lister, pushing tears into his eyes, pushing him away from this man who never seemed to stop fecking messing with him. Was this the world championship fuck-up-Lister tournament? "What _do_ you want, Arn? What the _hell_ do you smegging _want_?" He pulled himself off of Rimmer and stood, hoping the way he tore his arms away hurt Rimmer; at least that way the goit would feel something. "I can't do this! This..." Lister flailed his arms. He picked up his jumpsuit to keep them still.

Rimmer rubbed his eyes, tiredly, feeling oddly vacant. "I don't know."

"No, you smegging never do know," Lister muttered. He pulled his jumpsuit on. At least that was something he was fairly sure he could do without mucking it up.

"I think... I lost... just about everything I wanted... centuries ago," Rimmer muttered. No, all of that had been... before. When he was alive. When there was a ziggurat. When there was a family and a social order. "Millennia." He looked down at himself, covered with grass-stains and sweat, his penis hanging limply out of his trousers. Nobody to care that he looked like an ass. Except Lister.

Lister picked up his boots and put them on. He felt tired, very tired.

"I just want... to be normal. To have the normal, sane, happy life that everyone wants. That my brothers had." But no, his brothers were dead. Smeg, _he_ was dead. He frowned. "Or death." Damn it, the entire society was dead. Everything that dictated _right_ and _normal_ , and did these words suddenly simply cease to mean anything? How was he to know? "I don't want to smegging want you and miss you."

"All I can do is love you. And I wish I didn't, but I do. If that's not enough, I can't help you." Lister finished tying his boots. There. Another major accomplishment. Well done him.

Rimmer looked up at Lister "I just do... and if you did... hell, if you had the same, wouldn't you want to fix it?" he said, his voice almost a wail.

Lister stopped abruptly and turned sharply in Rimmer's direction. He moved over and put one hand on the grass on either side of Rimmer, bringing himself nose-to-nose with the hologram. "I _do_ have the same. And no, I don't. Because Arn - that's _life_ , that is."

Rimmer dropped his eyes. "Life."

Lister kept his voice steady. "Yeah. Life. Death. Whatever. And it just is, and we deal with it, because that's what people do. That's what yer brothers did too, you know, every single day. It's what people do. We're not perfect. We just are."

Rimmer folded his arms, shifting uncomfortably. He unfolded them to reach down and tuck his penis back into his trousers. He felt ridiculous, transparent. The strange tingling that used to come over him when the boys were being picked for football, knowing that he'd be picked last, that tingling that he felt when he noticed his fly was undone at the end of a date, was coming over him, and he hated it. Lister pulled back and stood with his arms crossed, looking down at Rimmer. Looking down on him like a school prefect; like one in the line of identical-looking sodding social workers that had sat him down in their offices and tried to run his life for him. "So, Listy, my guidance counselor," Rimmer asked, acidly, "what _do_ you suggest I do?"

"Figure out what the hell you want, then let me know. You want me? Fine. Swell. I'm happy. You don't? I won't like it, but life isn't always fair. I might stay here then, at that. But just let me _know_ , yeah? Because this..." he twirled his hand to indicate their recent actions, the hillside turf, looking almost disheveled "...is fecking killing me." He turned away, trying to catch his breath, and sat, finally. Standing up just seemed too much of an effort.

Rimmer rubbed his forehead, closing his eyes. He rolled over, putting his face into the grass, finding the black loam underneath oddly comforting. Little enough stability anymore, anywhere in the universe. No brothers, no parents, no society, no promotions, no JMC or Space Corps, no ranks. No _normal_. No _expected_. He would take what stability the sod had to offer. His face rested in an indentation, one that smelled like Lister. The ground, at least, did not seem to care what had transpired. "Why did you want so badly to catch Red Dwarf?" he asked, his voice muffled by the grass.

Taken completely by surprise, Lister almost turned his head, before remembering that nothing good or remotely helpful lay in that direction. "Eh?" What a question. Wasn't it obvious? "Because... it was the right thing to do, yeah?"

"We don't stand a chance, now," Rimmer muttered. "Too long."

"So we don't," Lister said, flatly. "We'll have a think on that later." When things were back to normal. Normal and claustrophobic and dull and boring, and sodding smegging no way in _hell_ would Lister put up with it anymore.

Rimmer rolled over and sat up. He shifted over until he sat almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Lister, looking out over the grass. _Perhaps this is all Arnold Judas Rimmer is_ , he thought. _A collection of malfunctions_. Without his malfunctions, he would be - Captain Platini. He frowned. "So. Is this," he tried to imitate Lister, "the right thing to do, yeah?"

Closing his eyes, Lister tried to enjoy the unexpected closeness for what it was, not hoping for anything more. "Feels right."

Rimmer nodded. Moved and seconded, and he could live - or not-live - with that. Lister leaned against Rimmer's side, and Rimmer tentatively put his arm over Lister's shoulder. The contact was oddly satisfying. Rimmer felt not in the least bit horny; just oddly calm.

For some reason, Lister started to shake; it seemed to be connected with a wetness in his eyes. He was tired, so tired. He couldn't think.

Rimmer looked down at Lister, the delicate calm Rimmer had just managed to grasp flitting away as Lister shook. "Oh, don't smegging cry. I really can't deal with that."

"I can," Lister said weakly, with a slight smile. He could handle it for the two of them. If Rimmer would let him. Rimmer shrugged nervously. But he did not let go. Lister gave him that. He did not let go.

Lister squinted towards the village, his vision blurred by tears. Things were so simple down there, weren't they? You just loved; you found someone you wanted, and you loved them. They loved you back, or they cared for you enough to... something wasn't right. None of the villages had hair that high or neatly coiffed, nor were they likely to be wearing coordinated eveningwear. "Hey... hang on. Is that Cat with those thr... fo... five girls?"

The delicate calm ran off somewhere far, far away. "I. Do. Not. Want. To. Know," Rimmer growled. "I don't think they do, either."

Lister wiped his eyes and took another look, then wished he hadn't. His eyes almost fell out of his head.

Rimmer reached up and covered Lister's eyes, looking resolutely away himself. The calm was far away, and Rimmer was damned if he was going to lose his sex drive to the blasted Cat, as well.

"Thanks... I couldn't look away!" Lister sighed.

"I couldn't look in the first place." Rimmer spat back.

Yes, it had been horrible. Depravity of the highest order. Of course... Lister thought for a moment. "You think that's physically possible?"

Rimmer curled his lip. "The brainless are often possessed of a great flexibility to compensate."

Lister gave a wide grin, and Rimmer, despite himself, glanced over. It was the impulse that makes one want to watch train wrecks and plane crashes and Paris Hilton videos, and Rimmer regretted it instantly. "I don't want to know where they're putting that big purple fruit, though."

"Oi, I thought you wasn't looking!" Lister stifled a sudden urge to giggle. This was nice, the two of them, the subject matter of their conversation notwithstanding.

"Just a glimpse. I'll be scarred for life." He probably would. He was not sure if he would ever have an erection again. Hell, he'd be lucky if his genitalia did not move back inside. He tried to think about something, anything else, and put his face in Lister's hair, feeling giggles shake the man's body. His hair had that reek Rimmer remembered from their days bunking together. "Their braids don't smell," he muttered. He quickly added, "I've... heard."

The though of what Rimmer might have heard - and smelled and seen - gave Lister an unexpectedly warm glow, as he thought of healthy, smiling teeth and sweet, friendly arms surrounding him. Lister gave a deep, comfortable sigh, and giggled again.

It was passing strange, trying to think of this desire for Lister as normal. Or at least, acceptable. He tentatively toyed with Lister's braids, ran his hands along the hair at the nape of his neck, and traced the outline of his ear. His fingers brushed Lister's cheek.

If he moved, Lister thought, this might all go away. He'd hardly understood how Rimmer worked before, and he was damned if he understood the flimsy framework he seemed to have erected now, holding up this wonderfulness and keeping it from crashing down on them both. Or maybe this wasn't real at all - just another unreality pocket come to haunt them. Making quiet happy noises, though - that might work. He did so, as Rimmer kissed his forehead awkwardly, like a child would kiss a teacher. "Mmm..."

"Mm," Rimmer replied, as if it were a countersign.

Lister's hand fell to rest on Rimmer's thigh, and he squeezed it slightly. That felt real, at last. A hard-light anchor in this complicated ocean they were swimming in.

Rimmer froze, his mind wrapping itself around this complication. He let himself get acquainted with the idea of Lister's hand on his thigh. Resting there. Almost possessively. After a minute or so, he kissed Lister again on the forehead. "I might still be slightly broken, you know," he muttered, defensively. "I've been in operation for a good long time."

It was hard to keep a straight face, but Lister just about managed by chewing on his lower lip, and trying to focus on the hut in the distance, into which the Cat had just been hauled. "Oh, eh?"

"Might well stop working, some time."

Lister shook his head. "So may _I_ , too. People die. It happens. All we can do is hope it happens later rather than sooner."

"Yes. Just so you're not surprised." Rimmer felt he had adequately covered his bases, for the moment, and kissed Lister on the nose.

"Yes, Arn, I know you won't live forever." He wrinkled his nose, happily.

"Yes. Well." Wait, Rimmer thought; there is still one base to cover. "I don't like your clones."

"Don't expect you to," Lister said, happily.

"I didn't like mine, either. Bastards."

Lister laughed. It felt good. And yes, it felt right. Like the right thing to do. The two of them, here. Him laughing. Not Rimmer laughing, though; that would have been truly disturbing. There was, however, on that forcibly solemn face, something akin to a blinking target, drawing Lister in. He turned towards it. "Hey, could I ask ye something?"

"I don't think I can keep you from asking. I reserve the right not to answer."

"All right, then." Lister's smile turned sardonic, and one eyebrow rose to the top of his sunburned brow. "Would it be all right if I kissed ya again?"

Rimmer pondered this. "All right with whom?" Fortunately, he did not have to worry about his smegging parents. "Kryten would not approve. Cat would throw up." Rimmer suddenly lifted his head. That was a brilliant idea. "Let's go ask him." He owed the Cat a little genital wilting.

"Oh, shut up," Lister mumbled, promptly kissing him without permission.


	4. Chapter 4

Rimmer lay on his back on the exam bed on Starbug. Coming to terms with his... inexplicable same-sex attraction was one thing, but although Lister had gently praised him - and not-gently done a few other things to him - for it, Rimmer was not prepared to concede that it truly wasn't just some odd malfunction without getting a diagnostic. He was a fairly advanced age, even for a mechanical, after all! It had taken a week, but he had finally convinced Kryten that it was vital that he get a physical, so would the batty mechanical please stop restocking the food stores and airing out the passenger cabins for ten smegging minutes...

He shifted slightly, trying to watch Kryten out of the corner of his eye. The mechanoid had assured him that on a derelict raid, he had located some much more accurate diagnostic machinery than what had been used at his last physical. Kryten hummed as he started to pull implements out of various cabinets and line them up on a small wheeled tray. Rimmer turned his head entirely to the side to get a better view, and immediately regretted it. Kryten pulled a syringe the size of a lager can with a hefty needle on the end out of a cabinet and put it on the tray next to a serrated knife and something that looked like a speculum for an elephant. He bent and pulled a spiky caliper out of a lower cabinet, putting it on the tray, as well.

Rimmer shifted, looking at the collection warily. "Is that all... necessary?" he asked, his voice slightly higher-pitched than normal.

Kryten stopped humming and looked around. "What, sir? Oh, no, these just needed a good cleaning."

Rimmer sighed. "Get _on_ with it, or I might give you a really good reason to clean them."

Kryten smiled and rubbed his hands. "Now then, lets take a look at you." He took a flat black unit off of a bench and brought it over to Rimmer, running it over his chest. He frowned, as the readouts failed to dissolve into anything coherent. "Hm..."

Rimmer shifted, doomsday scenarios swirling in his head. "What?"

Kryten ran the scanner over Rimmer's chest again, pressing buttons as he did so. "Very interesting."

"WHAT?" Rimmer yelped. "Am I about to stop working? Go spare? Blow up? _What_?"

Kryten looked at the readout, and his non-existent eyebrows leapt skywards. Well, that was certainly out of the ordinary. "Excuse me a moment..." He turned and tapped the scanner against the wall, very gently, almost gentle and loving. He paused, briefly, then banged it violently against exactly the same spot four or five times, rather quickly, as Rimmer held his arms up to his face, protectively. Brushing bits of paint and metal debris from the casing, Kryten re-checked the readout and smiled. "Ah!"

Rimmer sighed and leaned back on the table, his simulated panic slowly ebbing. "Oh, how we _wish_ we were a mickey-mouse outfit," he grumbled. He looked over at Kryten's building-block face. "You have delusions of mediocrity, you know."

Humming again, completely unfazed, Kryten pressed a button on the side of the scanner. It pinged like a toaster that was done with a slice. "There we are then, sir! Your results." He handed the scanner to Rimmer, with the seriousness of a headmaster giving out a school diploma to a particularly apt pupil.

Rimmer took the scanner and attempted to look like he knew what he was doing. It was difficult, as the scanner had no screen or other obvious readout. He turned it on its side, with no enhancement of his ability to understand a smegging thing. "Um. Yes."

"No, the other side, sir."

"Oh." Rimmer turned it over, revealing what looked like a battery housing. He frowned. Stupid goddam stuck-up bogbot, trying to make him look foolish. And, unfortunately, succeeding.

Kryten remained politely helpful. "Down towards the end, where the green light is."

Rimmer turned it again. There was, indeed, a green light at one end. Nothing more. "Er, it's just a green light."

Kryten looked like sincere helpfulness might start to seep out of his ears any moment. "Where it says 'clean bill of health' in binary."

Rimmer twisted his lip as he noted that the green light was pulsing softly. "Really? Are you _sure_ this is working?"

"Oh, quite, sir! A good couple of whacks always does the trick. Of course, before that it was insisting that you were a Peruvian tree-frog, but I had that taken care of." You had to be firm with those non-sentient mechanicals; without the promise of silicon heaven, or threat of silicon hell, there was never any telling what they might do. The poor, lost souls.

Rimmer shook his head and tossed the unit back at Kryten. "It's just not possible. I'm far too old. _Something_ must be off."

Kryten caught the unit, raising his shelf of non-brow. "Old, sir?"

Rimmer nodded vigorously. "Yes! Three million and some...."

Kryten interrupted him with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Oh, pshaw, sir! And how many of those years have you been in actual operation?"

"Almost a thousand," Rimmer snapped, haughtily. He might look like a hale thirty-year-old, but he had experience and wisdom under his belt, yes sir; more than that smegging bogbot, for sure.

"Oh, you young electricity based lifeforms..." Kryten chuckled. He shook his head and started polishing the scanner. The humid climate here was making cleaning ever so much more challenging and interesting.

Rimmer sat up, glaring at Kryten. "Yes, the immense wisdom of all of your years caring for three dead women and watching Androids..." He shook a finger at the mechanoid. "You've had two rebuilds since then! At Lister's hands, which explains a few things."

"I did a fair load of vacuuming, too, sir, to be fair."

"Oh, fabulous."

Kryten paused in his polishing, as a sudden thought occurred. "Now, wait a minute," he exclaimed, in disbelief, "are you actually suggesting that your _age_ could potentially cause malfunctions?"

"Of course! Mechanicals have limited operational lifespans!"

Adjusting his mirth-level several notches, Kryten laughed heartily. "Why, what a novel idea!"

"I think you are walking proof of _that_ ," Rimmer grated.

"Modern mechanicals were made to _improve_ with age. Some feature nanobot repair-drones, some specific structural enhancements that improve with time - the list goes on!" Kryten felt a slight stab of worry at the fact that he hadn't seen his own nanobots for quite a while. The little rascals could be so unpredictable. It was just like that time they'd re-constructed his groinal attachment in most absurd fashion. Thankfully, that had been back on the Nova Five, or else Mister Rimmer would never have let him hear the end of it.

Rimmer jumped off of the table. Things got old. Things stopped working as well as they used to. It was a general truism. "I think you are as full of crap as the communal latrine at the end of a week-long folk festival."

It was a very naughty thing to do indeed, but Kryten found he could not resist patting Rimmer reassuringly on the back. "Now, young man," Kryten giggled, as if Rimmer had been a misbehaving child, "that's no way to speak to your elders."

" _Elders_?" Rimmer shrieked. That aluminum feather duster was trying to pull the maturity card on him? "Just because you cleaned toilets on the Nova 5 for a few millennia..." Rimmer sputtered to a halt, then restarted. "You _yearn_ for the mentality of a teenager!" He shook a finger at Kryten. "Counting from when Lister rebuilt you, I'm older," he finished, sullenly.

"But your hardware isn't," Kryten replied, patiently.

"Yes, it is! My original bee is older than yours, and Legion must have been around for a few million years..."

"And your brain hasn't been operational for _nearly_ as long as mine, sir."

"Depends on your definition of 'operational'," Rimmer grumbled. He sighed. He was not there to argue with a sanitation mechanoid, however. He declared himself the winner of the argument, mentally patted himself on the back, then returned to the reason why he _was_ there. “Nothing wrong. Nothing at all. No little... flaws in the algorithm."

"No, sir," Kryten replied, confused. Perhaps this was a good time to enter Smug Mode? Yes. That always cheered him up. He did so, noting the irritation on Mister Rimmer's face with some satisfaction. "Everything is - as you say - 'tickety boo'."

Rimmer pulled his lips back from his teeth, making a face. He turned and left. Kryten had moved Starbug to a valley near the village, to facilitate his supply runs, so Rimmer now had to walk through the village to get back to his hut. He took the time to ponder. _Nothing_ wrong with him. So all of the... oddities he had been experiencing were just _him_? He was a fruit, a fairy, a pouf, an arse-bandit? But he had been saying those words to himself so continually over the past week that they had lost all meaning, as common words will do when repeated so excessively. Somehow, the idea that he was gay - or, giving himself the benefit of the doubt, bisexual - had not actually caused anything to change. Gravity still functioned, the sun still shone, Kryten was still a git, he still snarked. It was disconcerting.

"Aw, baby, don't do me like that!"

Cat's shrill voice could penetrate the deepest reverie. Rimmer slowed down, twisting his lip in annoyance. A kitten-like whimper came from inside of a hut he was just about to walk past. Rimmer stopped and looked at it, a smug grin tugging at his mouth. Anything that caused Cat to make a noise like that was worth a looksee.

His curiosity was rewarded more or less immediately, as the beaded curtain parted with a sound like a pair of maracas in a thunderstorm as Cat came running out. Rimmer had never seen the feline so disheveled. Even his polymorphed, uncaring self paled in comparison with this sad display of frazzled hair, bloodshot eyes, a suit in a terrible state of disrepair, and - oh god, how Rimmer wished he hadn't looked in that direction - a crotchal area that looked like it had been attacked by mountain-lions. "Bud, you gotta help me!" this pathetic wretch whimpered.

Rimmer raised an eyebrow, folding his arms and spreading his legs. "Oh, _really_." Cat would not ask Rimmer for smeg unless he were utterly at the end of his options. Rimmer liked that idea.

Three young ladies, all of them sporting a Lister-like inane grin (and not un-Lister-like shapely bodies, Rimmer's subconscious insisted on informing him), emerged from behind Cat, trying to drag him back in. "Aw man, not _again_!" Cat whined.

"A little too much pussy, pussy?" Rimmer snickered. If Lister were any judge of his clones, just one of the ladies would have a voracious enough sexual appetite to make a grown man feel faint. Three of them? He’d be dead in a week.

The ladies giggled, caressing whatever parts of the Cat they were able to reach through his feeble protests. Rimmer had seen him catch and skin a space-weevil in ten seconds flat - not a mental image he particularly welcomed back - but now he seemed only barely able to stand up straight. Cat wheezed in response to the caresses. "Ladies, ladies, please! There's only so much of me to go around!"

Rimmer put one finger to his lips and smirked. "Take a double dose of celibacy and call me in a decade. Or... we could go the neutering route. That one worked wonders for our old Tom."

Their attention grabbed by the new and interesting voice, the ladies shared a look. One of them, the one with the longest braids and the widest grin, turned her attention to Rimmer. "Do you share?"

"Do I what?"

The middle girl seemed to bounce between her two friends energetically, simply oozing sultriness. "You and the Sleeper - do you share?" she purred, by way of explanation.

Rimmer wrinkled his nose, pulling his lips back from his teeth. He could feel his nostrils quiver. Smeg, he should have known better than to stop in the village! A pack of little female Listers - and some variations on male - would inevitably follow him and try to get a quick shag, no matter how often, and how clearly, he tried to tell them he was just _not interested_. He could only try again. " _Not_ interested." Her comment about Lister penetrated. "Not that we... you know."

"Say yes! I don't think I can last much longer!" Cat panted. He did look as though he were about to collapse, but of course, this was a _good_ thing, as far as Rimmer was concerned.

Rimmer shook his head, enjoying that look. "This is _your_ problem, kitty. Don't drag _me_ into it." He started to back away as one of the girls pinched the Cat's buttocks, eliciting a plaintive mew.

A smirk tried to force its way onto Rimmer’s face, but disgust was firmly lodged there, and his face twisted as they battled for dominance. While they were working that out, a deep tenor sounded from behind him. "Watcher."

Rimmer stopped and turned, finding himself disconcertingly close to a young man with tan skin, dark brown hair and big green eyes, which were open wide as the man beamed at him. "That one does not wish to share his glorious difference with us," the man said, pointing at Cat. "Do you and the Sleeper share?"

Rimmer shivered at the very _thought_ of sleeping with someone who found the Cat attractive. "Me and Lister... Look, you're assuming..."

Another man approached, one who looked far too eerily like Lister. He eyed Rimmer lustily as he slid his hand into the first man’s. The lighter one smiled at the newcomer before turning his huge, inane grin back to Rimmer. "So, you do not share?"

"Hey, look, I have a great idea." Rimmer spread his hands, pointing at the women. " _They_ want to have sex." He pointed at the two men. " _You_ want to have sex." He crossed his pointed hands. "I'm sure you can work something out, yes?" _And I can get the smeg out of here..._

Both men smiled. It was a great fortune just to have met the Watcher; it was well known that he rarely ventured outside of his hut. And of course, now that the Sleeper had awoken, he had even less of a reason to. Still, it would be rude not to offer a sharing of pleasure! "We do not care for women," said the second one.

Rimmer thanked the stars that not a trace of scouse showed in the second man's voice. There was a certain laziness to the intonation of most of these people that almost fooled him time and time again. Linguistic subtleties were not a priority in his mind, however, as he watched the two men caress each other so damned _casually_. He hadn't gotten used to it in three hundred years; he probably never would be.

"What's wrong with women?" Rimmer asked, plaintively. They looked at him blankly. "Er, look, you don't want to have sex with me. Really. I... snore."

"But you have such beauty, such glorious difference!" said the first man, eyeing the Watcher's wonderfully strange clothes. No one had seen him without them; he never even went swimming!

"If you share, then what is the problem?" asked the second, confused. He had never answered their question.

Glorious difference. Oh, smeg, if he had to hear _that_ again... he was surprised they weren’t running desperately after Kryten. Rimmer slammed the door on the mental images that thought began to evoke. He returned to the issue of extricating himself from the blockade of three frustrated women on one side and two horny men on the other. "Look... It's... er... it's that time of the... millennium. A no-sex time. For, er, religious reasons. I can only have sex with people whose name begins with a D." Rimmer winced. He was babbling.

The men exchanged looks with the women, but neither parties found anything but mutual confusion. "Reli..gi.. on?" asked one woman, who was stroking the Cat's groin as he tried to struggle free. She wondered, idly, if she should mention that her name was Dina.

Rimmer felt ill. "Yes. Religion. It's a... Watcher...y... thing."

The men frowned. "We don't understand," said the darker one. "Don't you want pleasure?"

"Er, yes, which is why I need to go... have a bath. It gives me lots of pleasure. Yes." Cat mewed and collapsed, and the ladies moved to catch him, creating a gap to the side. Rimmer started to back towards it. "Sorry, chaps, some other time... some other fellow, yes?"

So he did go swimming? But where? The men blinked in unison. "Have we offended you?" the first one asked.

"No, no, not at all. You're lovely, really."

"Why will you not share with us?" asked the second. He was feeling more and more put-upon. The Watcher wasn't making any sense. The first tapped him on the shoulder, looking like he had been struck with a wonderful idea. "We can all bathe together, if you like!" he said. The second man beamed at him. Of course! Swimming with the Watcher - they'd be the envy of the village.

"No, I bathe in... acid. Caustic stuff. Not good for you." Rimmer started to slip out of the gap, his lip quivering.

The far-too-Lister-like man moved to cut him off. "Is it that I am too common?" There was doubt and worry in his eyes, but the other man squeezed his arm reassuringly. Surely the Watcher would not be so petty as to consider _looks_!

Rimmer shook his head and waved his arms. "No, you're really quite strange. Absolutely whacko, I assure you."

With an odd sense of deja-vu, the men exchanged looks yet again, and the smile faded from the first one's face. He had the creeping suspicion they were being insulted. He gave Rimmer a plaintive look. "We have offended you. May we seek out other men with which you might find pleasure, given that you do not find us worthy?"

"No, really, I'm cool. Thanks." Rimmer turned and hightailed it, ignoring the confused mumbling and plaintive Cat-whining behind him. He trotted up the hill to his hut, bursting in with a sigh of relief. Lister sat on the bunk with a pile of dry grass at his feet, weaving it into... something vaguely cylindrical.

Lister looked up as Rimmer entered, but not for long. He couldn't loose his place in the threading; it was hard enough when he was looking close at it and concentrating. "Oh, hey, man. How'd the physical go?"

Rimmer's fume was already halfway out of his mouth. "Those smeggers! They just want to bonk! You can't walk through the village without one of them wanting to put his," Rimmer gestured vaguely, "up your" he made a different vague gesture and shook his head. Lister's question finally penetrated. "Oh, yes. Kryten says I'm... fine." Rimmer let his disbelief show.

"That's good, then, "Lister said automatically. Rimmer's health, given that he had suspected nothing was wrong with it in the first place, was not one of his current priorities. He worked a strand of grass around another strand carefully, hoping it wouldn't slip and cut his finger again this time.

"Er, yes." Rimmer sighed. Well. It hardly mattered. Even sleeping with the lowest and least hygienic technician in the Jupiter Mining Corporation was a fairly sane act, by the standards of _this_ village. Rimmer paced. It nonetheless grated at him, and the bit of brain at the back of his head, where part of his mum still lived, popping out every once in a while to remind him he was crap, was having a fit. Lister cutting his finger on a blade of grass was a welcome distraction. Rimmer watched him suck his finger and shake it. "What the smeg _is_ that?"

Lister held it out, giving it a calculating look, as though he wasn't quite sure himself. "Well, it started out as a hat..."

"And it ended up as a pregnant mammoth?"

Lister put it on his head experimentally. To Rimmer, it looked exactly like he had a pile of badly fitted-together blades of grass on his head, which was, of course, the case. "Nah," Lister decided, as the construction, such as it was, slid down and fell in front of his eyes. "I think it's more of a basket now."

"It's so good to see you in touch with your artistic side," Rimmer deadpanned.

Not fooled for a moment, Lister gave a sarcastic grin. "Yeah, that's nice, Rimmer. I'm just trying to absorb some of the local culture."

"Oh, god, please don't do that," Rimmer groaned, as Lister shook his head and kept weaving. "The last thing I need is _you_ running around trying to boink everyone who has 'glorious difference'."

His eyes and concentration now entirely on his work, Lister replied as best he could. "Is that what they're doing, then?"

"I think they've ruined sex for the Cat, which is the only good thing I can say about them."

One over, keep it steady, fold it under, Lister repeated to himself, pausing to snort, giggle, and shake his head at Rimmer's comment. Or was it fold and _then_ put it over? He could never remember.

Rimmer sat in his hard-backed chair and steepled his fingers, watching Lister weave. He was very intent on his project, whatever the smeg it was, and his tongue stuck half-out of the side of his mouth. The bit at the back of his mind was yelling something else at him that all right-thinking Ionians had thought about those smegging bent folk. "Is that what makes you tick?"

His place in the weave irrevocably lost, Lister looked up. "Eh?"

Rimmer waved one hand between the two of them. "Are you just getting a little," he couldn't have kept snideness out of his voice if he had tried, which he didn't, "glorious difference?"

No, no, no, no, no - smeg _no_! Lister hadn't spent the last week patiently trying to acclimatize Rimmer to the idea that two men having sex might be both normal and sane to then have him turn around and start questioning Lister's motivations all of a sudden. He cycled rapidly through despair, frustration, annoyance, sadness and amused resignation before settling on worry. He put his work down and turned his body towards Rimmer, giving it one last try. Of course, if this didn't work, he wasn't about to give up. He just liked to think of it as a last try; that way, he'd work harder at it. "I don't even know what that means, man. I just want _you_."

"For the variety?" Rimmer asked, tartly. He waved in the direction of the door. "They're _your_ clones!"

His clones, yes, and vastly different in so many ways. And Rimmer saw that; even pointed it out when it went in his favor. Lister fretted, wringing his hands. "No, man. Just... because." He felt exasperated. "How am I supposed to know? Love just _is_ , Rimmer."

That word again. At least it wasn't being used in that deceptive post-sex time, when you're liable to say all kinds of things you don't actually mean and regret with a passion later. Rimmer nodded and walked to the bed, looking at the horrid hat/basket with exaggerated interest. "It's all about doing the oddest-looking bugger on the block, for _them_ ," he muttered.

This unexpected interest in his crafting made Lister more than a little suspicious. He turned to watch Rimmer watch it, wondering what his angle was. "Oh well, to each their own."

"To each his or her own," Rimmer corrected, absently. Lister was far too intent on that smegging basket-thing. It was annoying enough to not be the center of attention; to be upstaged by a bumpy protobasket was unacceptable. When Lister picked up the sodding thing again, turning it around in his hands like it was one of those babies he still hoped to the stars they would never adopt, Rimmer saw his chance. Snatching it away and holding it off to the side he looked at the blade of grass in Lister's hands, and whistled innocently.

Flabbergasted, Lister looked on in surprise, then extreme annoyance. The bastard! He couldn't tell if he was more annoyed that Rimmer was holding it higher than he could reach, or stunned at the surprised that he had actually done something like that. "Oi!" he shouted, feeling oddly elated, and annoyed that he was elated.

"What?" Rimmer asked. Hell, why had he never thought of this before? With all of the pranks they had pulled on Red Dwarf, why had he never thought of just using the fact that he was taller than the smegger? Oh, Lister was going to go spare.

"Come on, give it back!"

"Give what back?" Rimmer looked around, as if there might have been something of Lister's somewhere that someone might have taken. He was enjoying this far too much.

He would not, Lister decided, start jumping up and down, or show the true degree of his irritation. He would not give Rimmer the pleasure. Instead, he merely rolled his eyes and moaned. "Come on!"

Rimmer looked at Lister, raising an eyebrow. "Come on what?"

His resolution lasting about as long as his average new-year's resolution, Lister did jump, his eyes looking straight into Rimmer's. He regretted his actions mid-jump, turning the movement into a half, or possibly even quarter-hearted thing. This was both pointless and silly, he fumed internally; Rimmer was achieving exactly what he'd set out to do - annoy and ridicule him. Of course, the thought of this only made him feel more annoyed and ridiculous.

Rimmer only had to bend back ever so slightly to keep it well out of Lister's reach. He could see frustration and annoyance building up in Lister's eyes, like in a puppy's when you held its favorite chew toy just out of reach. Oh, this was too good. "What are you doing?" he asked, with faux bemusement.

Lister brought his finger forwards to point and started to say something twice, three times, but no. This was utterly bewildering - Rimmer had never _done_ anything like this before! All his other jokes and jibes Lister had developed a natural defense to - he know how to deal with them. He could retort for his country, but he clearly needed entirely different language skills to be able to cope with this situation. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, very jittery. He just wasn't, he realized, used to Rimmer, quite literally, having the upper hand. Of course, it took a lot to actually outwit David Lister... He finally looked away, like he couldn't care less about the entire spectacle. "That is so childish," he said, with an undertone of amusement he couldn't quite get rid of.

Rimmer raised his eyebrows. Yes, childish, Rimmer thought. Not like the time I had too much to drink at Jeffersen's farewell party, and you put that temporary tattoo on my bum that said 'Take a number and form an orderly queue.' Rimmer kept the basket high. "What is?"

Looking away, examining his nails, Lister gave the appearance of having all the time in the world. He bit one of them, just for good measure, knowing, without turning around, what the look on Rimmer's face would be like. He started whistling through his teeth, and then, when he felt moment had come, jumped around in a manic tackle, pushing Rimmer down on the bed with a whoop of excitement and triumph. "Give it back!"

Rimmer flailed, surprised, but managed to grab Lister's shoulder with one arm, holding the basket out of Lister's reach.

"Give it back," Lister yelled, getting right in Rimmer's face and glaring, but his eyes were sparkling. This was a lot more fun than weaving!

"Or what?" Rimmer asked, slightly breathless from the exertion of holding Lister away.

Lister's face contorted into the widest grin of which it was capable. The result was somewhat disconcerting, even if it hadn't been for the evil glint in his eyes which accompanied it. "You won't like it."

"How do you know?" Rimmer's own grin turned into that of a vulture, as if to match Lister's.

Lister tried to reach the basket without taking both hands off of their tight grip around Rimmer's waist. Rimmer wondered if it were possible to take a basket with your eyebrows, which was what Lister appeared to be attempting. Eventually giving up this impossible task, Lister muttered, "Final warning."

"Calling your bluff, miladdio!" Rimmer said, with authority, grabbing Lister tightly and wiggling to try to keep the basket higher than Lister could reach.

With the firm determination of an Everest-climber, Lister removed one arm from around Rimmer, stretching it up and across him, towards the basket. His mouth opened slightly, as with a quick flick of the tongue, he licked Rimmer's ear.

Rimmer shook his head and tried to push Lister downwards relative to himself and the basket. He wasn't sure what the endpoint of this game was, but it was pretty damn fun to watch Lister get so frustrated, and the something-else that was sparkling in his eyes wasn't utterly objectionable, either. He wrapped his legs around Lister to keep him down.

Lister reacted by pushing the other way, batting uselessly with his hand, still utterly unable to reach the basket. Ah, but there were other ways. He turned his face to look at Rimmer again, and pinched his right buttock with a grin.

Rimmer yelped, his legs loosening their grip. Lister wasn't playing fair! He attempted to say so, but it came out sounding like "Nfaieep!" He tightened his leg-grip again, swatting at Lister's free hand with the hand that had been on the man's shoulders before.

The yelp earned a giggle from Lister before he lost his balance as Rimmer's leg hold was loosened, then tightened. He just barely felt Rimmer's hand brush against his in mid-air, and swore under his breath. One way or the other, he was going to win this!

Rimmer grabbed Lister's dratted pinch-happy hand, trying to twist it behind Lister's back. "None of that!" he gasped, breathlessly.

Yes, he was definitely going to win, Lister giggled to himself, as his arm was twisted. Good thing Rimmer didn't appear to realize what the prize was. Lister gave a short, breathless mock-attempt at struggling free, squirming in Rimmer's grip, an even odder sort of grin playing at the corners of his mouth.

Rimmer flopped about, trying to twist them both so that Lister was underneath. He just needed to get the man pinned under him, then grab his wrists, then... well, he'd think of something.

The trick now, Lister thought, was to keep pretending to struggle, so he'd end up with Rimmer above him. He made what must surely appear to be a valiant effort at pushing Rimmer away from his upper body before, yes, surely, giving up, panting slightly. Soon, it would be time for the Oscar-level performance.

"What is so important..." Rimmer gasped, dropping the basket so that it rolled under the bed, then quickly grabbing Lister's wrists and holding them to the bed, "that you need to put in that basket?"

And here it came. Taking care to make his eyes look dazed as he gazed into Rimmer's Lister bit his lower lip, and slowly murmured, "I forget..."

"Well, it's a good thing you're so eager to get it back, isn't it?" Rimmer asked, raising his eyebrow. Lister swallowed and shifted a little in his grip, and Rimmer couldn't stop his lip quirking. He had won, hadn't he? It certainly looked that way. Lister licked his lips, and Rimmer started to wondered if _Lister_ had actually won. He couldn't move his hands, or Lister would escape, and now he had quite a hard-on. "Kryten's spare heads?" he asked. "For when you need a little?"

That was unexpected. Lister's mask of fevered adoration and lust fell away to an uncontrolled snort that ended in a giggle. Not that he really needed to feign the lust; he found that came rather naturally...

Well, he still had his head free. Rimmer leaned in and licked Lister's cheek. Rimmer despaired of ever getting the man to pay proper attention to hygiene, but at least he swam regularly in the local creek, and stayed reasonably clean. Rimmer suspected it was only because the bare-breasted women bathed there, but he couldn't complain about the results. No, he thought as he licked the other smooth cheek, not at all.

Lister found that his eyes were closing and his back arching, quite of their own accord. There also seemed to be a long, soft moan escaping from his lips, and he had no idea how any of these things had come about. Wasn't he supposed to be in control of all this?

Rimmer rubbed his groin against Lister's, gently. No, that would not do. He would come right away, in his trousers, and would never hear the end of it. He pulled back slightly as Lister arched up, breathing more heavily. "Are you sure you don't have more arts and crafts to do?" Rimmer asked, breathily. "I could leave you alone and go help Cat out..."

The idea of being left alone right brought Lister close to panic, and he struggled against Rimmer's grip, in the process pushing hard against Rimmer's stomach, and moaning.

Rimmer gave a breathy whine. "Or... maybe... not..."

Hot breath caressed Lister's face, and made his bone-marrow all try to escape down his spine and into his groin, or at least that's what it felt like. If Rimmer hadn't been holding him down, _Lister_ would be pinning him to the bed. He brought himself back to coherency for long enough to force out a single, imperative command. "Don't you _dare_ go now."

"If you... absolutely insist." Rimmer rubbed his stomach a little against Lister's crotch, closing his eyes. Even _that_ was a bit much.

Lister pressed even harder, mumbling, "Damn straight I do..."

"Straight?" Rimmer asked, trying to quirk a sarcastic eyebrow. They were not cooperating. "I'm in the wrong hut."

"Stupid man..." Lister mumbled, wishing there was a lot more of the stupid man for him to consume. He stuck his tongue out, trying to lick any bit of face close enough to him.

Rimmer took Lister's tongue in his mouth, slightly concerned about what it would do if it kept flopping around like that. "Yom r shlpn wu a shoopi ma," he replied.

Fair enough, Lister thought as the words decoded themselves to some degree in his mind, giving as much of a nod as the situation allowed. "Mmm..." It was hard to speak with your tongue down someone's throat.

"Gu."

There is only so far down a person's throat your tongue can go, however, and besides, it wasn't just about frantic need. All right, it was very much about frantic need, but it was a need brought on by something deeper. And so Lister started to slow down, practically caressing Rimmer's mouth with his lips and tongue. Arn, he thought. _Yes, Arn!_

"Mmmm..." Rimmer rubbed his stomach against Lister, almost hypnotized at the man’s sensual kissing.

Even deep, gentle kisses became too rough, so Lister began to break them up with light butterfly touches to Rimmer's lips. Rimmer licked at Lister’s in return, wondering what exactly was happening to his stomach when Lister's short, almost upturned nose rubbed against his own. As he pondered this, Rimmer found his face stretching in an uncomfortable, unfamiliar way, and realized it was trying to give a snarkless smile. Those muscles were not in good condition.

Something odd was happening to Rimmer's face, Lister noted. At first, he thought something was wrong, as the hard-light equivalent of facial muscles seemed to strain against themselves, turning into something Lister had never seen before. He was about to ask what was wrong, when the truth hit him like a hammer to his solar plexus - Rimmer was smiling! Arn - his Arn - _was smiling!_ Lister felt like writing him a sonnet, but all that came out of him was a joyful "Hah!" punctuated by an extra kiss on the lips. He intertwined his legs with Rimmer’s, and leaned his head backwards, exhaling deeply as Rimmer put his face in the join of Lister’s neck and shoulder, licking gamely. A smile. _A smile_.

Rimmer pulled back, and looked at Lister’s pinned hands, wondering how the smeg he was going to get the man undressed without letting go. He finally ducked his head down and took the zipper of Lister's jumpsuit in his teeth. Working it downwards was difficult, as the fabric bunched and twisted, and Rimmer made slow progress, strange expressions making their way over his face as he tugged. Halfway down, the jumpsuit became completely uncooperative, and Rimmer dropped the zipper, frustrated.

As Arn's teeth grabbed the zipper, Lister's mind packed its bags and waved him goodbye. Whatever odd expressions there might be, Lister did not notice them; he was too busy squirming, arching, and whimpering at what was being done to him. In a high-pitched, quiet voice, he squeezed out, "Yes..."

That gave Rimmer an idea. He took the left top of the jumpsuit in his teeth and tried to stick it in Lister’s mouth. Lister was confused at first, looking at Rimmer like he was asking him to eat the goited thing, but soon got the idea, and bit down. Rimmer took the zipper in his mouth again, mumbling around it, "Damn thing."

"Nngh." It sounded like a general agreement.

This tension allowed Rimmer to pull the zipper all of the way down without further incident, and he spat it out with a triumphant, "Ha! Can’t keep A.J. Rimmer out, no..." He stared at what was revealed. Lister typically skipped his long johns in the heat, and although Rimmer found it terribly unhygienic, he had to grudgingly admit that it was convenient, every now and then.

Lister gasped as he let go of the cloth in his mouth. The sound might have been a laugh, but ended up too breathy.

Rimmer plonked on a finishing "...miladdio," as he nuzzled Lister’s erection, his voice muffled.

Just the mere suggestion was enough to make Lister whisper weakly, oh so quietly, "OhgodyesArnplease..."

Rimmer still wasn’t about to do _that_. He could not understand how Lister could do it so cavalierly. Hand jobs were only so satisfying, though, he knew... He breathed over it, licking Lister's stomach and navel.

More or less overstimulated at that point, Lister lay oddly still, except for a few quite pronounced shivers. He forced his breath to be something akin to normal, trying not to think about what might be in store.

Rimmer licked his way up to Lister’s chest, then flopped his head down on the man’s chest. "Damn," he muttered. Lister made a noise that landed somewhere between confusion, enjoyment and frustration. Rimmer pulled himself up, looking at Lister’s pinned hands with a look of fierce concentration on his face. "I can't get the oil without letting go of your hands."

Oil. Such a marvelous word. Slippery. Slidey. Sliding. Gliding. Lister flashed a feral look. "Can't... be held responsible for what... might happen if... let go." He bit his lower lip again, sucking it into his mouth. Oh, the things he would _do_ to Arn when he let him go, and he _would_ let him go, Lister would see to that, one way or another.

"I _knew_ I couldn't trust you," Rimmer growled, affecting more frustration than he felt. Not all that much more, however. He quickly let go of just one hand, staring intently at Lister. Lister lay very still, meeting his gaze. Lister _voluntarily_ lying still? Not taking an opportunity to poke or prank? Was the world coming to an end? Rimmer raised his eyebrows, then let go of the other hand, sitting back. He held his hands spread, ready to grab again if Lister tried… something Listery.

Lister took a moment to realize he was now free. Now there was something to contemplate. Free. Free to do whatever he wanted to Arn. To do whatever he wanted, in general. What _did_ he want, he asked himself, and found the answer to be... Somewhat surprising. He slowly raised his eyebrows and spread his lips in a wicked smile as he moved one of his own hands over to grab the other, keeping them in the position they were held. "Was... enjoying tha..."

Rimmer's eyebrows met his hairline. Something was unquestionably and vaguely disturbingly alluring about the idea of a happily pinned Lister. "Waitamin," he squeaked. In a frenzied and uncoordinated rush, he ducked out of the curtain, grabbing one of the bottles that were _always_ smegging sitting there since the Sleeper returned. He cringed as some of the villagers noted his exit; he would never hear the end of that. He ran back in, quickly, dropping the bottle next to the bed and flopping on top of Lister, scrabbling for his hands.

_Outside in the village, a group of youngsters shouted eagerly to their parents, who started running towards the hut of the Chosen ones. Soon, smoke began to seep out through the door-curtain..._

Lister tried to keep from giggling uncontrollably at this display, despite his acute desire.

"Don't laugh at your superior officer..." Rimmer growled, grabbing Lister's wrists.

That had definitely been the best choice, Lister congratulated himself. He put on a mock serious face, and spluttered "Oh, no, sir!" with an undertone of unashamed laughter.

"Remember that!" Rimmer licked Lister's ear.

Lister’s voice came out an octave above normal. "Try..."

Rimmer nuzzled Lister's neck again, awkwardly spreading his legs so that his jacket rubbed Lister's erection. Rimmer rubbed up and down, moaning into Lister's neck, his own crotch just above Lister's legs. But when Lister pressed back, rubbing his leg against Rimmer’s crotch, Rimmer jerked up with a shock. "DondothatI'llcome!" he squeaked. No, he would _never_ hear the end of that.

Lister grinned at that. "Wouldn't... want that, now, would we?" The exact opposite came through in his voice. He looked on as Rimmer shivered slightly, holding himself off of Lister, making a noise through his nose on every exhale that sounded like "meep..."

Rimmer finally brought himself back under some semblance of control, and gently lowered his jacket to Lister's erection again, sliding gently up and down.

Lister breathed erratically as this happened, and whimpered, "Yes..."

Rimmer licked Lister's lips. "Yes what?"

What do you think, you idiot, Lister thought, close to tears with frustration. There was no anger in him, though; all was love and pleasure, even when he was deprived of it. "More..."

"More." Rimmer could do more. He leaned back, letting go of Lister’s wrists, and yanked off his jacket and undershirt. This was going to be messy. He dropped one hand to pick the bottle off of the floor, pulling out the stopper. He poured a little of it on his hand to warm it, sniffing at it. It smelled cloyingly of sweet cinnamon. Rimmer wrinkled his nose. "Ugh." But the oil was amazingly slippery. It should spice up the hand job nicely. Rimmer put his slicked hand on Lister's cock and started to slide it up and down.

Lister only just had time to grin at Rimmer's discomfort with the aroma before intense sensation threatened to knock him straight through the bed and onto the floor. He wailed and arched his back to keep from doing so; he had to stay there, had to keep this sensation going, had to stay in bed, oh _god_.

 _Amazingly_ slippery. Lister’s cock wanted to slither right out of his hand. Rimmer had to hold on to it very tightly as he stroked.

If he'd been over-stimulated before, this was top of the ziggurat-level stimulation, Lister's confused mind informed him. Ziggurat, that meant something. Something... Oh hell, who cared. "Sh... Sh... gonna... hh... Arn..." His head thrashed from side to side.

Lister’s cock was now covered with the slippery oil, so Rimmer slipped his other hand over it to take over, using his slicked-up hand to pull his own erection out. Blast, why had he never thought of using the dratted clones’ offerings for this? Three centuries and change of using spit. The slick oil felt fantastic; he would not last. He had no smegging idea why it took so long for Lister to come. Given the same stimulation, he could come twice and go watch a movie before Lister finished. But the expressions the man made! Hypnotizing, almost erotic. It was worth pumping him as hard as Rimmer started to, just to watch.

Off in some far-away land, Lister happened to look up in time to see Rimmer starting to stroke himself. It was hard to speak, but he managed, his voice breaking several times during the effort. "Not... fair... I sh.. ou..ld." Some slow mental arithmetic made him realize that he now had the use of his hands. Conveniently, he finally had some use for them.

Rimmer barely noticed. He panted, very close to orgasm, pumping Lister's cock erratically. And so, as fast as humanly possible, Lister reached down and put his own hand on top of the hand Rimmer had on his own erection. That gave him almost two strokes before Rimmer came with a wail of "Gerrhaaaaaiiiinnnnnnn..." Lister laughed, near to tears.

The warm, slick feel of the oil and the unexpected sensation of Lister’s hand atop his lent a certain extra something to Rimmer's orgasm, something that made him spasm with his whole body, gripping Lister's cock almost too tightly for comfort. To Lister, that was irrelevant; he forgot his own erection completely. He held Rimmer’s hand tightly, stroking him, even through his orgasmic spasms.

Rimmer got a grip - so to speak - on himself. He started stroking Lister again, still heaving huge breaths. He shook off Lister’s hand, dropping the hand he had used on himself down to the bed beside Lister for balance.

With a supreme effort, Lister whispered into Rimmer’s ear, "Enjoyed that, did you?"

"I..." Rimmer paused to whine through his teeth as a latecomer shiver took him. "You'll have a full... re... port later... but..." he wheezed, "initial impressions are... positive."

Well, that was probably a good thing, but Rimmer keeping on stroking him like that certainly wasn't. He had plans other than coming so soon. Lister pushed his groin hard against Rimmer, who let go, grabbing the other side of the bed, shaking his head slowly. "I don't get second chances," Lister said into Rimmer’s ear. "And I'm not done with you yet..." He licked the ear, and Rimmer squeaked. Lister slid one hand around Rimmer’s waist, the other gripping the hologram’s shoulder firmly. He tried to move Rimmer around, and was surprised when the man complied as he shivered; a novelty, that, Rimmer being putty in his hands. Something to be treasured. Once on top, he pulled off the holographic boots and trousers, and straddled the hologram in question. Knowing that the oil must be around somewhere, Lister bent and rummaged on the floor. He finally found it and picked it up.

The world had turned around. Wasn’t he supposed to be the one on top, pinning Lister? But this felt rather good, too, and Rimmer’s legs were a little unsteady after his orgasm, anyway. This was probably for the best. He reached up to rest his hands on Lister’s thighs. Comfortable hand rests, those were, he noted absently.

Lister poured out a small measure of oil on Rimmer's stomach, allowing it to trickle down to his groin. Rimmer wheezed in startlement. The oil was too cold. Didn’t the goit know you were supposed to warm it in your hands first... he’d have to give the him a talking to. Oh. If he remembered to, after Lister pressed his erection to the puddle, sliding up and down. It seemed to be taking away his ability to think very coherently. Rimmer sighed and put his head back.

Lister gritted his teeth; coming at this point would mean defeat. He'd fathered a culture based in part on sexual prowess through generosity and kindness. A rather naff basis for a culture, some might say, but did any of those people have cultures of their own? Lister thought not. He also tried to think of pipe-cleaners too cool himself off a bit, but for some reason, it did not help. Nevertheless, he managed to hang on. He grabbed Rimmer’s shoulder with one hand and buttock with another, sliding back and forth. Rimmer moaned in time with the rubs, kneading the thighs that his hands had been resting upon. He whined, starting to harden again.

Lister licked Rimmer’s chest. As he felt Rimmer harden, he moved farther down so that their erections were touching. Raising himself slightly, he poured more oil into hand, rubbing it over both erections at same time. He could not, he found, tell which was which any more, as his hand slid almost frictionlessly from one to the other. Breathing came in short bursts, because unlike Rimmer, he did have to breathe.

Rimmer lay there moaning, the pitch varying in response to the caresses. Lister lowered himself again, almost slipping off of Rimmer as the oil started to seep into new and interesting places. The stuff was almost _too_ slippery, wasn't it? he thought.

Rimmer felt Lister sliding around, and grabbed his hair with one hand and his braid with the other, as Lister applied his own counter-measure by spreading Rimmer's legs so he was resting between them. As he felt Rimmer shiver, he realized where he was; this, coupled with the oil which was now coating damn near _everything_ , led to quite a tempting train of thought. He kept moving against Rimmer, both hands on the hologram’s buttocks, wondering if Rimmer would explode if he asked him. Explode in a bad way, that was.

Rimmer felt Lister move back, and shifted slightly towards Lister, bending his legs and spreading them a little more to get the man closer. He rubbed Lister’s hair, letting go of the braid and starting to buck.

Lister started seriously to pant; the thought was stuck in head now, but surely... He opened his mouth as if to say something, but bit his lip, slowing his movements. He stroked one hand from Rimmer’s buttock up the outside of his thigh and down again. It would be so easy, so damn easy...

"Eeyeah..." Rimmer muttered, shivering again as some excess oil spilled from between then and trickled down between his legs. Well, maybe. He had certainly used his fingers before, and in a moment of panic, back when he was still alive, read a number of books that claimed that this – and even the other thing that was becoming somewhat likely – was perfectly normal for a perfectly normal man, even a straight one, to enjoy. Of course, Rimmer had to wonder about the kind of person who would read a book like that in the first place; maybe they just meant it was normal for the kind of sick pervert who would read a book like that in the first place...

Lister used his other hand to spread the excess trickle of oil across Rimmer’s inner thigh, rubbing it. His mouth opened a little again and stayed open as he hesitated, his cock aching terribly. It was a reasonable reproductive organ, it argued, but there were, after all, limits to what it could and would put up with! "Arn..." Lister whispered.

Rimmer snickered at the breathy voice. "Daaaaa... ve," he said back, then sighed as Lister kneaded his inner thigh with his slick hand.

"Will you... would you..." he asked, nervous as hell.

"Will I would I what?" Rimmer said in singsong, reaching his own hand to touch his own sadly neglected cock.

Shivering, Lister moved back a little and took out the bottle again, pouring a generous measure into his hands. If he'd had any presence of mind at all, he'd see that his lover was now forced to pleasure himself, but Lister did _not_ have any presence of mind. He rather had an absence of mind, and a whole host of other things, chief among them, an orgasm strongly petitioned for by his penis. He slathered the oil all over the organ in question, which did not really sense the difference anymore.

The air was strangely cool, and Lister’s pullback was unwelcome. "Dave..." Rimmer sighed, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

Lister positioned himself between Rimmer's legs, one hand on either hip, and looked up with nervous worry. He positioned himself so he could easily thrust into Arn, only nudging gently, if there was such a thing in this situation. He was ready to stop at any moment. Hell, he was ready to flee the bed and run away at any moment, and chances were he would have to.

Rimmer wiggled slightly experimentally against the feeling of cock there. It didn’t feel half bad, actually, Almost... titillating. He sighed and gently stroked his own cock.

He had to keep in control, Lister thought, wincing. Perhaps more oil would help? Well, it could hardly hurt. Oh. Yes, it could, couldn't it - that was the problem right there. More oil. He poured it between them, unaware that he was holding Rimmer almost painfully by the hip with his other hand.

Rimmer shifted slightly against the very tight grip, stroking himself more firmly. Whatever Lister had in mind, he'd better hurry up, before Rimmer either finished or wilted due to a bruised hip.

Desperation struck Lister, hard and fast, and he pleaded, "Arn... I'll stop... don't want... may..." His head spun. There didn't seem to be any sort of gravity, or directions like 'up' or 'down' anymore.

Well, what the hell. "Try," Rimmer said, quietly.

Affirmation. OK. OK. Lister nodded and slid in very carefully, as though he would be graded on this later on. It was surprisingly easy - was that the oil? What the smeg was in it?

Pain, for a moment, that passed almost as quickly as he felt it, leaving an intense ache in its wake. It felt pleasurable, but oddly distinct from the pleasing sensation of a finger or two. That increasingly strange sense of _fullness_ \- Rimmer couldn't decide if it was painful or pleasurable. Both, somehow, oddly. "Oh," he told the ceiling, in a voice that sounded like someone had just told him at dinner that the pepper was over _there_. His hand shook on his cock.

There had been pain, Lister fretted; he had caused pain - but he just couldn't stop. All he could do was watch in trepidation, unable to stop his movement farther in. And it was... it was... No words. No smegging words.

Impossibly, the sense of fullness increased as Lister slid all of the way in. "Ah," Rimmer told the ceiling, as if he had found the salt to match.

Lister nearly collapsed with effort, making noises like a frustrated steam-engine. He stayed there for a moment, trying to get a feel for what he was doing, as though someone would appear with an instruction-booklet if he lingered long enough, his whole body screaming at him to move.

"I think..." Rimmer observed to the ceiling, "that's rather... good." Surprisingly, it was. The burning ache was still quite present, but _something_ quite appealing about it. Rimmer decided to leave the analysis for later.

"Oh..." Lister choked. And started to move. Oh smeg. Taking it slowly would be more or less impossible.

"Ohmy." Rimmer moved his hand on his cock in parallel with Lister's movement. That was unsatisfying, so he pumped his hand on his cock much faster, which in turn moved Lister to match his tempo to that of Rimmer's strokes, muttering incoherencies. _That_ \- well, to hell with what it was. It was somehow extremely good. Rimmer gave a drawn-out "Ohhhhhhh" and a quiet "Yes." Come squirted out onto his stomach as his body trembled. He stroked almost absently as he came, matching Lister's thrusts.

Lister thrust twice more, then came, with a wail that was tinged with laughter. Describing the emotion - the emotion _s_ \- even to himself, was pointless. He couldn't. And he didn't need to. He could have this again, whenever Arn would let him. God, what a privilege! He held onto Rimmer's hips like a lifeline, closing his eyes and trying to keep from falling. Because he had to, given that he couldn't actually stay in there forever, no matter much he wanted to, Lister managed to ease himself out, whimpering.

The ridge below Lister's head was still firm, and it sent a painful jerk through Rimmer as it popped out. "Oh," he said in surprise, as if he had found oregano in the salt shaker. He let his legs fall as Lister collapsed on top of him, shifting his buttocks as come tried to seep out. He quailed at the thought of what the sheet must look like. The thought of the horrified look that would surely be on Kryten's face when it came up in the washing was rather appealing, however.

Lister tried to climb up Rimmer's body, but it seemed impossibly tall, much more so than it should be. He moved his mouth, then realized that words did not come out. Rimmer put one arm out to the side, and Lister stumbled into this makeshift embrace. "Hope... not... hurt..." he muttered.

Rimmer took stock, and decided that, on the whole, he wasn't. "No," he said, slightly surprised. He cleared his throat. "But I get to do that next time," he added, officiously. Enjoyable that had indeed been to try out, but he'd be damned if he was going to be a smegging bottom.

Now there was a thought. Lister gave a slight shiver, exploring it fully. "Yesssirrr..." he said, breathily.

Rimmer patted Lister on the waist with the embracing hand. "Oh," he said, as he suddenly remembered something. He shifted slightly, pawing under the bed. He found it, and slung it up to dump on top of Lister. "Here's your smegging basket back."

The badly weaved-together leaves scratched across Lister's chest, but it only made him want to giggle. And so he did, more and more, uncontrollably, gasping for air. Grabbing a hold of the silly thing, he swung it hard, hitting Rimmer squarely in the face.

"Ow!" Rimmer said in a wounded voice, rubbing his nose. Lister kissed where it hit. "Do you know the penalty for hitting a superior officer with a handmade basket post-coitus?" Rimmer chided.

Lister, overcome, started kissing him all over his face. "No, sir!"

Rimmer blinked at the kisses. He shrugged, giving up. "It's not important. I don't know where we'd get a mini trebuchet, anyway."

"C'n build'n," Lister said through happy kisses.

Rimmer picked up the crude, lopsided, gap-filled basket. The holes seemed large enough to roll a _full-size_ trebuchet through. "Riiiight..." He licked Lister's cheek as it passed by.

"Or I c'n stop hit u w'bskt," Lister said, collapsing again. Talking was just too much effort.

"That would be better than the other way of circumventing that directive, certainly," Rimmer agreed, grabbing the basket and dropping it over the side of the bed again. He leaned back, closing his eyes.

"Won' hitcha 'gain."

Rimmer stroked his hip gently. "Go to sleep. And for smeg's sake, don't snore."

"Cn snr r ht u w'bskt. Choice." He started to snore.

Rimmer paused to figure that collection of mumblings out. "Either one will prevent sleep just as effectively." He sighed. "I'll end up with slightly fewer bruises from the snoring." He looked at Lister. "Like I have a choice," he grumbled, turning his head to the side.

Lister hugged Rimmer tightly in his sleep. "Luvarn." Rimmer might have heard, had he not fallen dead asleep.

 

Lister stood at the edge of the lake as it glittered in the moonlight. Small, non-stinging, slightly luminescent insects buzzed drunkenly across the surface, swarming in the (yes, that, too) fragrant evening air. He shook his head with a dismissive snort - this whole place was one gigantic romantic cliché. He sighed, and looked out over the water, still and serene. It _was_ a rather wonderful cliché, though.

The water looked more than inviting, so Lister wasted no time getting in. The temperature was _just_ right; cool enough to give relief from the warm air, but not so cold as to be uncomfortable. In fact, it was disconcertingly like slipping into rather pleasant, liquid air.

It was so peaceful out here, even with the sounds of the village, where life went on as usual, close by. This was, he realized, as a fish nudged his leg curiously, then moved on, more like home than any place he had ever been. Him. All of this was him. That fish, the tiny, near invisible creatures he knew dwelled in water, those shiny bugs - they all came from him. And while that felt soothing it was also more than a little discomforting. Never having been much of a swimmer, Lister took a few strokes back and forwards, then headed back to the bank.

There was no light in the Watcher's hut, but to Lister's eyes it shone like Red Dwarf's landing lights. He started walking faster as it approached. Home, something inside him hummed. Home. He pulled away the leafy curtain, and turned, looking out towards the lights and sounds in the village. Behind him, he heard the all-too-human nasal breathing he now realized he could not sleep without hearing.

In the distance, there was song.

 

Rimmer woke up at some point after the sun had gone down. His arm ached where something had been flattening it, but that something was no longer there. He mumbled and scratched his sticky stomach, still feeling the remnants of after-sex lassitude. Lister must have woken and left the bed, his sleep-bleary mind concluded, as if it were a terribly clever bit of deduction. He opened his eyes, and Lister was indeed standing in the doorway. Rimmer frowned. The moon was still fairly full, and its light glowed faintly off of droplets of water that covered Lister's skin, and one trickle that flowed down his back from his hair.

Rimmer rubbed his eyes. "Yer wet," he mumbled in a thick voice.

Lister turned, and his teeth caught the dim light as he grinned. "Yeah, man. I went swimming."

Rimmer stretched. "Should've brought me. I have a silver swimming certificate."

The glow of Lister's dark, water-beaded skin faded as he walked into the hut and out of the moonlight. "Next time," he said quietly, sliding his warm, wet body onto the bed, legs to either side of Rimmer's. And who could have resisted licking off the droplets of water that clung, shivering, to Lister's lips?

Not Arnie J. No, sir.

 

The sound of several hundred villagers singing at the top of their lungs, when all of said lungs were genetic variants on Lister's, was quite a sound. It was, if you had asked Rimmer for his opinion when he was awake, a hell of a din. If you had asked him when he was asleep, he would have given an answer very similar to the one he gave the singers themselves - an incoherent muttering as he stirred, none too happy about being tugged from half-sleep into a state of annoyed consciousness.

Rimmer scratched the hair behind his ear as listened to the ruckus, audible over Lister as he snored away at Rimmer's armpit. "Dun... 's already clean..." Lister muttered in his sleep, shifting. Rimmer turned onto his side, trying to cover his exposed ear with his forearm. Lister shifted more as he moved, mumbling, "gonna do... 'morrow..."

Rimmer sighed and started to shove Lister onto his own side. "You're snoring..." he muttered. Lister's breath stopped and restarted with a sound of bubbling phlegm as he woke for a split second. "Whut?" he asked, then immediately dropped back to sleep with a louder snore. Outside, the singing became steadily louder, as if the villagers were approaching the hut. Someone musically inclined might have noted that the song was in seven-part harmony, accompanied by crude rhythm-sticks, but to Rimmer, it sounded like a mess. Like that ghastly bit in the operas he'd been forced to bore himself through in school, when everyone would start to sing different tunes at the same time. He had always been surprised by the applause after those segments; he kept thinking they'd all gotten the wrong script, and that he was witnessing some horribly embarrassing mix-up. He groaned quietly, coming to terms with the fact that he might be awake for good. It had been a while since the last big party, after all. They would sing, they would chant, he would get sick of it and tell them to bugger off.

Rimmer sat up on the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes. Behind him, Lister stirred, opening one eye. "Wha..."

Rimmer patted him on the side in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. He had over a lifetime of trying for the opposite effect to overcome. "Villagers. I'm going to tell them to shut up."

"Singing..." Lister mumbled.

"Screeching," Rimmer muttered, rubbing his stiff back.

"Singing 'bout us..." Lister mumbled.

Rimmer paused to listen. That did seem to be the case; most of the song was in indiscernible mess, but now and again, 'watcher' and 'sleeper' were audible.

"All the more reason to tell them to shut up," Rimmer growled. He stood, changing to soft-light to let all kinds of crud that he'd rather not think about fall through him. His uniform re-formed, and persisted as he changed back to hard-light. He yawned, adjusting his unadjustable H and straightening his already-straight jacket.

Lister got up on one elbow. "Whereugoing?" he yawned, scratching his head.

"I'm going to tell the smeggers to keep it bloody well down," Rimmer announced. The sound was clearly approaching, and Rimmer was not going to let them smegging camp out on his hill.

Something was subtly wrong with the environment in which he was in, and it set Lister off enough that he found himself unable to go back to sleep. Singing, he realized. It was the singing; it was getting louder. "Eh, what's going on here?"

Rimmer walked to the door and pulled the curtain open just enough to look out. It did look like a bigger party than they usually had; the Elders must have gotten their hands on some really good root to keep them up so late, and they must have given it to the kiddies, as well. What he would guess to be the entire village stood outside, torches lit, grins wide, clothes - as usual - pretty much absent. They shouted, in fairly decent synchrony, for such an obviously half-drunk and half-stoned bunch, "Oishmegheid!"

"Go away!" Rimmer yelled, stepping out slightly.

Lister wrapped the sheet around himself as best he could, and stumbled to Rimmer's side. It seemed to be light outside, but how could that be? It hadn't been _that_ long since he'd gone for his swim. He blinked a few times, before his brain allowed itself to accept the input from his eyes. It was, indeed, not day outside. Rather, the entire village seemed to have moved to what was, for all intents and purposes, Rimmer's back yard, and had moved every torch they could find with them.

Rimmer looked at Lister's dishevelment, annoyed. This was not the way to get the villagers to pack up and fuck off. They would just eat up his appearance, too - and indeed, as soon as he was visible, the crowd yelled, "Sleeper!" accompanied by general cheering and whoops. Rimmer found himself oddly annoyed that _he_ would be called Smeghead, and Lister the Sleeper. "I will get them to call you jackarse," he muttered to Lister, with certainty. "If it's the last thing I do."

Lister gave a bemused "Hiya" to the crowd, whilst jabbing Rimmer with his elbow and flashing him an evil look.

Rimmer graced him with a lofty expression. One of the Chosen Ones approached, a middle-aged woman with the ever-present braids; Rimmer vaguely recognized her, but could not place her. The sight of her face seemed to trigger a vague sort of headache, which did nothing to improve his mood. "It's too late for this shit, really it is," he told her.

"We come to honor your love for one another!" the woman announced, in the manner of a ritual chant.

Rimmer squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Oh, not more of this," he groaned. "Can't you go celebrate it without us?"

Lister looked from the woman to Rimmer and back, confused.

"You took the oil," the woman announced in her bullhorn voice. "Your love is strong. Your coming together heralds good things for all our people." Laughter and cheers greeted her announcement, and just did not seem to die down.

The times when Rimmer hated being right were few - considering how infrequently he was right, he tended to cherish those moments - but this was a rare moment. He _would_ never hear the last of it. Smegging voyeuristic perverts, indeed. "Wait - we used your lube, so we're blessed? What if he used it to rub a veruca?" he asked, pointing at Lister. The rather horrid thought that some of those smeggers might have been listening in - or watching - hit him, and he wondered if he would ever have sex again.

"Come on, Rimmer, they're just trying to be friendly," Lister chided, more out of habit than anything else. Friendly the clones might be, but something about this situation did not feel right at all to him. But Rimmer was always putting what Lister had begun to think of as 'his people' down, and he was not about to give him more fodder for ridicule.

Rimmer turned to Lister, taking out some of his irritation on the other man. "They're always smegging friendly. _This_ ," he yelled, pointing to the crowd, "is meddling."

Lister felt undecided as the crowd started to close in. The clones were chattering amongst themselves, singing, settling down; some had brought food, drink, and smoking rolls, and started to spread out on blankets they had brought, as if it were a picnic. More disturbingly, to both Rimmer and Lister's mind, many of them started to canoodle, as if this were, instead, a warm-up to a group orgy.

"And now," the woman said in her crowd voice, "we would be honored to see you celebrate your love."

"Steady on!" Lister yelped. This was taking the concept of friendliness beyond too far and out the other side.

Rimmer hiccupped. "It's a bad night for your honor, folks."

The crowd had, by this point, lost whatever order it might once have possessed. People were poking around the hut and peeking in the windows and door - those who were not already making out or outright having sex on the hillside. The scent of various aromatic oils filled the air, advancing mercilessly towards Rimmer's nostrils. He sighed. He decided he was officially beyond shock; the clones did that to a person, he thought. However, he now had an escape, something he never would have thought he would voluntarily leave a bevy of naked women to re-enter. The clones did that to a person, he thought, again. "I'm going back to Starbug."

Lister swallowed. "I'm not sure they're gonna let us do that, man."

"What are they going to do to stop us, sing at us?" Rimmer grated as he started walking towards the crowd.

The woman with the penetrating voice noticed, and moved to intercept Rimmer. Her arms were crossed, and she was wearing an exact replica of the look Lister got when blocking Rimmer's access to the storage room where they'd put the slide-projector. "You are the foundations of our culture. Your joining is scared," she said, loudly and sternly. "You cannot leave us now."

"You got along perfectly well for three centuries and change without our 'joining'," Rimmer said, crossing his arms in turn and glaring pointedly downwards at the twonk.

"Yes. We waited. And now, the Sleeper has come. Together, you will bless our people."

Rimmer choked slightly at her phraseology. Yes, they had probably been listening in when the Sleeper had come. "Go bless yourself," he snarled, pushing his way through the crowd.

"Rimmer!" Lister cried, trying to follow him through the laughing, pushing crowd. The crowd was not violent, but was overly curious, like untrained animals. He couldn't even follow Rimmer with his eyes, much less make any progress through the mass of bodies.

Rimmer pushed at bodies with his arms, his nose wrinkling in disgust at the orgy of drinking, smoking, and sex. He was glad he was dressed. "Rimmer!" he heard Lister yell again behind him. "Smeg - let go of me leg!"

"Lister, stop gadding about!" Rimmer yelled back, just about glimpsing, in those few seconds, a laughing, grinning woman, her hands curled possessively around Lister's nether regions.

"I'm trying, man, I'm trying!" Lister yelled, as two entirely different teenage girls grabbed the ends of the sheet he was wrapped in, and tugged. Predictably, he fell, rolling onto something he really, _really_ hoped was a particularly firm, pliant root.

Rimmer sighed. "Do you want to get back to the 'Bug, or do you want to flirt with the ladies?" he asked, tartly, pushing at a man who was trying to lick his ear.

Lister struggled upright and shrugged out of the sheet. Still tugging at it, the girls fell in a confusion of limbs and laughter, which Lister gratefully took advantage of. "Let's go!"

Rimmer tried to leg it, but it was easier thought than done. The clones were thick on the hillside, and they were pushy. Rimmer stumbled as he pushed at arms that tried to grab bits of him. The footing was slick, as it was only about half hillside and half undulating naked people. Yelps sounded now and then, and Rimmer tried to grind his boots in whenever he heard one. Suddenly, a clear voice sounded out somewhere to the right of them. "Over here!" It was a voice that Rimmer was mortified to find that he recognized.

Lister saw Ilse as Rimmer was still turning, and tried to grab her outstretched hand. He looked around at Rimmer, who was frowning at the girl. "Come on!" he hissed. This was _not_ a time for Rimmer to be confronting his sexual hang-ups.

"Shouldn't you be off shagging something?" Rimmer asked acidly, stumbling as the crowd lurched about.

Ilse shook her head. "No time! I can lead you safely from here!" Rimmer's lip twisted as he looked at the large blanket that she carried, which looked like it had been woven from blessed leaf. He wondered how much of it had gone into the blanket, and how much had gone into her as she weaved it. She held it out, shaking it as if she wanted them to cover themselves with it. "Oh, for Jupiter's sake..." he groaned.

"Come _on_!" Ilse said, in exactly the same tones Lister had used earlier. Rimmer gave an exasperated look at that man, who looked exasperatedly right back at him. Hesitating for a moment, Rimmer suddenly found himself stumbled into Lister as a girl tried to grab his crotch. Seizing the opportunity, Lister grabbed Rimmer and shoved him under the blanket alongside himself within two seconds flat.

"I feel like a schmuck," Rimmer muttered. He was taller than just about all of the clones, and was wearing a bright blue uniform that looked like nothing they wore. Even the clones weren't _that_ stupid.

"Shhhh..." Ilse hissed at them, and Rimmer, despite himself, grumbled more quietly.

Ilse talked to passers-by as she lead the two. "These two are sick, I'm taking them to the shelter."

" _We're_ sick??" Rimmer shrieked in high-pitched annoyance.

"Shut it, man!" Lister wheezed at him. Rimmer grumbled more quietly.

People randomly patted their backs and make reassuring noises as they were led... somewhere, through a seemingly endless crowd. It was impossible to see out from under the blanket. Rimmer shook his head. Maybe the clones really _were_ that stupid. "Out of sight, out of mind, and the latter isn't much of an effort," he grumbled.

"Hurry... we are almost there..." Ilse hissed.

"Where have I heard that before?" Rimmer asked, tartly.

The crowd seemed to thin out. Ilse urged them on a few feet more, then removed the blanket, revealing, before anything else, her own grinning face. She looked like a dog that just preformed a great trick, and was expecting a treat. Rimmer looked around, fuming. They were close to Starbug; the crowd cheered and laughed behind them, far enough into their party to not notice that the focus of it had run. "Bloody smegging whacko oversexed nutters..."

Lister shook his head. Madness. Running around without their kit on, not a care in the world except where their next drink would come from, and not even that, because it was easier to come by than water. Was that him? Was that the sum of whom he was? "Am I really like them?" He looked to Rimmer, disconcerted that he was turning to the prince of put-downs for reassurance. "I'm not like them, am I?"

Rimmer folded his arms, looking at Lister archly. "Weeeeellll..." he said, and noticed that Ilse was grinning at him. He twisted his lip. "A _bit_."

With everything else that was going on, it had taken Lister until this moment to realize he was naked. "Smeg," he mumbled, cupping his genitalia in his hands. He was like them. He really was.

"A lot, actually," Rimmer said, looking airily at Lister's cupped genitals. There was a bit of a theme of shamelessness. And, from what he couldn't avoid noting as they had stumbled through the crowd, a certain size advantage.

Ilse waved at the two, urging them. "You should get inside your..." she frowned thoughtfully, "thing."

"Not you, too!" Rimmer said, exasperated. Out of the frying pan and into the smegging fusion cooking flame. What did he expect from that perverted culture?

Lister and Ilse rolled their eyes in unison, like a pair of land-locked synchronized swimmers. "No, ya moron," Lister moaned, "she means the 'Bug!" Ilse nodded eagerly.

"Oh. Yes. Er. Yes," Rimmer said, pointing absently at it. "We should. Go." Smeg, he was probably blushing.

Ilse's grin turned into a sad smile. "We shall miss you. But you must go. I see that now. The others will too, in time."

"I'll miss you smeggers..." Rimmer grumbled, thinking that he would miss them less if he had a better throwing arm. He would have gladly given them a good-bye in the form of a few shied rocks from where he stood.

"I'd shake yer hand but..." Lister looked apologetically at his groin-covering hands, and Ilse giggled.

"Go ahead; she'll probably appreciate it more," Rimmer said. He hardly had time to turn his head, however, before Ilse threw herself around his neck, kissing him. Rimmer stumbled backwards, startled. "Goodbye..." she glanced at Lister.

"Rimmer," Lister provided with a grin.

"Rimmer," Ilse repeated, nodding in satisfaction.

"Erm..." Rimmer's hands hovered awkwardly somewhere around the back of her waist. He wondered if he was going to have to pluck her off of him. But the girl just looked at him oh-so earnestly, in that way they did, and kissed him chastely on the lips. She retreated slowly. Rimmer licked them after she had withdrawn, tasting grass and blessed leaf. "Yes, well." He blinked.

Good girl, Lister thought, stifling a grin. Served him right, the uptight twonk. He turned to Ilse. "Goodbye, darlin'. Ya did good." Ilse beamed back.

"How would you know?" Rimmer hissed quietly to Lister. It suddenly struck him that she had probably _told_ Lister all about... oh, smeg.

"I have to run. Love and share!" she called; it sounded like a greeting. And like the most natural thing in the world, she turned on her heels and ran off.

Rimmer waved with faux enthusiasm, looking at Lister nervously. Smeg, hell, she probably _had_ told him all about it.

Lister watched her, smiling in an almost fatherly manner. "Nice kid."

"Yes." Rimmer said, his voice dry as a bone.

"Wha?" Lister watched Rimmer's face fall into as blank an expression as he could manage. To Lister, it looked highly pompous.

"Is Cat still in the medibay?" Rimmer asked.

Lister had tried very, very hard to forget about that. No one should have to need those parts of themselves put in a cast. It was a sight that stuck with you. "I think so, yeah."

"No reason to stick around, then," Rimmer said, turning to the gangway.

Well, yes. Paradise, perhaps, but not for them. Lister sighed, wondering if they would ever find a place fit for _all_ of them. They could come back here then, maybe, and actually adopt some of those... ah, well. Nothing more for them here, indeed. Although... "Erm... well... Krytes did say there was a few essentials he hadn't gathered yet.."

"Yes, but we won't miss them unless we really care about whether your boxers smell of mint fabric softener or lilac. And quite frankly, I don't." It was past time to leave. Centuries past.

"I like lilac," Lister muttered. He had run out of even semi-plausible excuses.

"I just care that you wear them," Rimmer said, pointedly looking at Lister's cupped hands.

"That so?" Lister asked, raising his eyebrows and shifting his hands subtly. From what he'd found, Rimmer seemed to be quite happy to find he was _not_ wearing them.

Rimmer raised his eyebrows. The man wanted to have sex _again_? After... _that_? "They _are_ your clones, aren't they..."

Giggling, Lister added hurriedly, "It _is_ getting kind of chilly. We'd best get inside so I can get into those," he gave a cheeky grin, "boxers."

Rimmer gestured magnanimously towards the gangway. Lister started walking up it purposefully. Rimmer followed, glancing nervously back to make sure none of the clones had noticed their departure. They were still partying what passed for their brains out. Rimmer turned, and almost jammed his nose into Lister's buttocks. Lister had stopped to open the locked airlock. Rimmer stared at the buttocks, his eyebrows clambering upwards.

They finally left his field of vision, allowing some blood to return to his more northerly head. "Oi, Rimmer!" Lister called. "Get a move on!" Rimmer shook his head and climbed in, closing the airlock behind him.

 

"Thrust figures should be on the navicomp now, Kryten."

Kryten, who had taken over the Cat's seat for the launch, glanced at the display. "That amount of thrust is more than needed to make escape velocity, Mister Rimmer, and the backwash from the engines will likely set the village aflame."

Rimmer sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. "No sense of civic duty, Kryten. That's your problem," he said smoothly, as Lister walked into the cockpit, dressed in an old t-shirt and a baggy set of boxers.

Rimmer looked around with something akin to disappointment. "It took you long enough to get dressed!" he chided. It had been at least an hour since Lister had run off to his quarters from the airlock, muttering something about needing to get some clothes on.

"Er... Well..."

"Are we ready to lift off, sir?" Kryten asked Lister, who was quite thankful for being interrupted.

Rimmer sighed. They had been ready to lift off for half an hour, but that smegging mechanoid would not touch the launch controls without the approval of his precious smegging Mister Lister.

"Yeah, man, all set," Lister told Kryten. He turned to Rimmer, fidgeting. "Yer always saying how..." he fished around for something to say, "I need to tidy and that, or I'll never find anything."

"Yes, and that's living proof," Rimmer replied, absently. "Yes, bogbot, we've been ready to lift for half an hour!"

"Starting engines, Mister Lister," Kryten said, pointedly looking at where Lister stood in the middle of the cockpit. Regulations were clear on the fact that all crewmembers must be strapped in during launch for their own safety.

"How's Cat?" Lister asked Rimmer. "He didn't look good last time I saw him."

"Still whimpering," Rimmer said, grinning broadly. "I paid him a visit. It's very important to be solicitous and supportive at a time like this."

"It takes forever to clean the medibay after his visits," Kryten said with a quiet sigh. He could not deny that the Cat had shown more animation during Mister Rimmer's visit than he had shown since he had crawled into the medibay in a whimpering mess, but the resulting broken equipment and wall gouges were not easily mended. "Sir, you should sit down and strap in," Kryten said more loudly to the still-standing Lister.

"Oh, right. Yeah, I suppose." Lister did so, looking distracted. He hadn't quite... well, it would just have to wait.

"Lifting off," Kryten said, flicking switches and pulling back on the joystick. The launch was smooth and trouble-free, and the obvious competence grated on Rimmer. He shifted, looking at the oddly quiet and subdued Lister.

"You're not missing them, are you?" he asked, wondering if Lister missed turds he left behind on a hike, as well.

Lister seemed absorbed in something else. "Wha? No... no... I mean... we could come back and that, yeah? See how they were doing."

"Come back? We're headed for Earth, aren't we?" Rimmer asked, chidingly. "That's a very lengthy round-trip."

"Yeah, well..." Lister trailed off, sighing, and pushing randomly at buttons.

Rimmer frowned. "Well, we have a little bit of them here, don't we," he said, flatly.

"Eh?"

"If you miss them, just look in the mirror and drop your IQ by half."

Lister rolled his eyes. As soon as Kryten announced that they had achieved orbit, and that those passengers on the left side of the 'Bug could see the planet split in half by the terminator in a lovely manner, Lister jumped to his feet. "Gotta... thing," he mumbled, rushing off.

"Leaving orbit," Kryten announced, and stood. "Just time to start on the laundry!"

Rimmer watched Lister leave with a bemused expression. It did not last long, however, as Kryten walked out and left him to realize that _he_ had been left with the first cockpit shift. "Hey!" he yelled, but when neither returned, he turned to his console and irately ran useless system scans.

 

Kryten relieved him several hours later, muttering something about how Mister Lister needed his rest, and Rimmer walked back to his quarters. He was not in the least bit tired, but he felt it was important to re-establish a routine. After his shift, back before all of... what had happened had happened, he would go back to his room and read. Or stare at the ceiling. Wank, maybe. He stopped as soon as he walked in the door. He did not have many possessions, but they were well-organized and sensibly set out, and he noted their absence immediately. "Oh, for smeg's sake!" he yelled at the empty room.

There were not many suspects for the appropriation of his things, and he stormed over to Lister's quarters. Probably another smegging prank. Well, he was not the Sleeper anymore; he was smegging Lister, and he would smegging well keep his mitts off of Rimmer's belongings. He hit the Door Open button without knocking. Lister stood in the middle of the room, his back to the door; he started at Rimmer's abrupt entry and almost dropped something he was holding.

"What did you do with my things, you goit?" Rimmer bellowed.

Lister turned quickly, hiding the object behind his back. "Oh! Erm..." he looked around, guilty.

Rimmer looked around, as well. His electronic book, his book on astronavigation, his comb and gel, his small box of music - they were all scattered about the room in the haphazard manner that Lister kept his own things. Rimmer looked back at whatever Lister was hiding. "That's not my book of twentieth century license plates, is it? It's the only book I have from the Dwarf!"

"Ah..." Lister looked around again, cursing himself for not keeping proper track of the time. He could have finished his preparations hours ago, but he'd gotten distracted with one of the myriad books in Rimmer's electronic library. It was nice have gotten a few things he'd always wondered about confirmed as completely normal.

Rimmer saw the book in question, leaning next to a potted plant that looked indigenous to the planet they had just left. "Lister, what are you up to?" Rimmer asked, crossing his arms.

"I just..." Lister shrugged, lamely. "I thought you might like it if we, you know..." He shrugged again, at a loss for how to phrase this without sounding like an idiot.

Rimmer raised an eyebrow. "We what?"

Lister gestured around the room with his shoulders; he did not want to move his hands. Well, there went the 'not stupid' idea out of the air-lock.

Rimmer looked around room. Lister had stolen his things, yes. And? "We what?"

"Bunked together," Lister answered, quietly. If stupid was the way it should be, then he might as well embrace it. He met Rimmer's eyes earnestly.

Rimmer opened his mouth, then closed it. Well, this would shoot his routine to smeg, wouldn't it? Then again, it had been fairly well shot to smeg already. "Really..." he said, for lack of anything else to do with his mouth.

"It's all right if ya don't want to," Lister said, looking down.

Rimmer walked over to sit on the spare bunk that the blasted Cat sometimes used, and sat on it weakly. Well, it had been rather... bearable, spending time with Lister in the past week. "It would make the drills easier, certainly."

Lister gave a cautious smile.

"I mean, the emergency drills," Rimmer amended quickly, seeing the smile.

"Good. I'd..." Lister suddenly felt oddly nervous. Why? After all they'd been through? Ah, but that had been another world - another reality, even. This was space, where no one could hear your sighs of boredom; where walls were dubious shades of grey, and people slept in bunks, separated by more metal, plasti-crete, and a few feet of stale-ship air. "I'd like it if ya did. Stay. Here, that is. You know, with me." He was babbling.

Rimmer raised both eyebrows. "Yes, like we did. Back on Red Dwarf." That was safe, wasn't it?

That had not been what he'd meant at all, Lister thought, as he did his best to keep his back away from Rimmer. But it was a start; something he could work with. He decided to go with it. "Well... yes."

Rimmer looked at the bunk, and wrinkled his nose. "This smells like Cat. Fish aftershave."

Lister gave a quiet chuckle. "We'll have Kryten sort that out. Not like he doesn't like to clean."

"Kryten." That infatuated mechanoid would not take this well. He was the one who had sorted them into separate rooms on Starbug when they first lost Red Dwarf, after all. Rimmer stood again, pushing that out of his mind to focus on the current mystery. "What the smeg are you hiding?"

Lister cursed internally, as the object nearly dropped from his hands. He lost his balance, then straightened again, giving Rimmer a wild look. "Erm..."

Rimmer walked over and started to reach his hand around Lister's back. Whatever it was, Rimmer would soon find out; longer arms were a definite plus.

Resisting half-heartedly for a few moments, Lister finally gave in guiltily, showing Rimmer a brown, ceramic-like bottle of the oil that the clones had made.

Rimmer sighed. "It's not the cinnamon, is it? I hate cinnamon."

"Don't think so. Might be mint."

Rimmer opened the bottle and sniffed at it. "Peppermint," he sighed "I like spearmint better."

"All the same to me," Lister mused, in what he hoped was a properly nonchalant tone of voice.

Rimmer shook his head and restoppered the bottle. "Yes, I'm sure." He handed the bottle back to Lister. Lister took it and toyed with it. Scent aside - it had been magnificently slick stuff, Rimmer thought. "You brought it to put in nougat, I'm sure."

"Not really," Lister said, his eyes shining.

The corner of Rimmer's mouth quirked, despite himself. "So you want to _bunk_ together."

"I did promise you you'd get to have a go next."

Rimmer hiccupped. Now that was just _not_ smegging fair.

"Suppose I just wanted my bases covered," Lister continued, toying with the bottle. He was not about to let Rimmer have all the fun. It wouldn't be fair for him to get both multiple orgasms _and_ the joy of receiving every time.

Rimmer hooked one finger in Lister's boxer elastic. Oh, the man probably thought Rimmer was wrapped around his finger. He'd show him. A. J. Rimmer was nobody's boytoy.

Lister bit his lip, but did not look up, possible future scenarios dancing in his head. Oil, peppermint or not, featured heavily in them all. Good thing there were at least five crates of the stuff in the cargo bay. Ilse really _was_ a good girl.

"I'll cover your bases..." Rimmer said, running his hands down the inside of Lister's boxers to cup his buttocks, "whatever the smeg that means."

"I was hoping ya would." Lister let himself be pulled. He whispered into Rimmer's ear, "Ya know... with that... thing ya do, you could go on forever. I could handle it, if ya used enough of that stuff..." He licked Rimmer's ear, imagining Rimmer hardening inside him, pummeling him senseless, then hardening again, and again, and again...

"I haven't the faintest idea how long it goes," Rimmer muttered into Lister's neck. He had a feeling that he would soon find out, however, and would not walk terribly well tomorrow. But it was some consolation to think that Lister probably would not, either.

 

And it was said that one day, the Sleeper woke, and became whole again, and the Watcher's friends came to take them back to the stars. But people, in their greed, were overcome with grief and anger at the thought of losing their beloved Watcher, and the long-lost father of their people. And so, the Elders came together in the hut of thought.

For days they talked, and smoked, and drank, and remembered. They sang the old songs, the ones that were said to have come from the mouth of the Watcher himself, from the time he had sat by the Sleeper's side day after day. Sung out of tune and rhythm, they were said to be particularly lucky, but they brought no solace to the Elders this time.

It took a group of young ones, barely old enough to share, to bring the news that the two had finally joined in happy coupling, and this was when the Great Mistake was made. In their blindness, the people did not see how the Sleeper and Watcher were different; how the stories were different too, when they told them. How the stories had always told of them going away when the time came, and that this was the time.

And so, a feast of coupling was prepared. The chants were sung, the village gathered and marched to the couple's door, as they always did when people were joined together in new love. But the Watcher fled, and took the Sleeper with him, and for a time, it seemed as though they had been forgotten.

But ah, they had not counted on the blessed prankster nature of the Sleeper.

For in his wisdom, he had brought the friend who never tired, who had spread his pleasure through the people, and shared with all those who were willing, shunning only men - but even they accepted this, when they saw his true purpose. Long after they had left - Watcher, Sleeper, Guardian, Pleasure Seeker - new children were born with a glorious difference never seen before by man, woman or child.

And at the night feasts, these new children would sit with their parents, their eyes reflecting the light from the fire, and their voices would ring out in the songs of memory. And their hands would find those of the other children, common, mutant; all, and together, they would remember.

They would remember.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Listerworld scene](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203834) by [Lala_Sara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lala_Sara/pseuds/Lala_Sara)




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